A bomb was detonated as his car approached his home, in the breakaway Russian republic's capital, Grozny.

The mufti - who is also a member of the Chechen government - and his bodyguard escaped unhurt but the car caught fire and the driver was injured.

A large crater was visible where the bomb had exploded. Windows in nearby buildings were blown out and a disused gas pipe was ripped apart by the explosion.

It was the second attack against Mufti Kadirov. His office was seriously damaged earlier this year when a bomb attached to a wall exploded, but Kadirov escaped unhurt.

Attack linked to anti-kidnapping drive

Mufti Kadirov, who called on Sunday for kidnap gangs in Chechnya to be wiped out, linked the attack against him to the assassination of General Shaid Bargishev, the head of the Chechen police unit which is trying to halt the wave of kidnappings in the republic.

General Bargishev was killed and two of his bodyguards were wounded in a bomb attack in Grozny on Sunday.

The attack coincided with the start of a major security operation in Chechnya against kidnapping gangs.

Chechnya's beleaguered President, Aslan Maskhadov was quoted as saying the attack was meant to frighten law-enforcement officials.

The BBC's correspondent in the region, Andrew Harding, says that kidnapping has become a lucrative business in Chechnya, with ransoms of as much as $1m changing hands.

Differences over who to blame

The Russian presidential envoy to the Commonwealth of Independent States, Ivan Rybkin, attributed the latest attacks to "certain political, financial and religious forces from Middle Eastern countries".

Mr Rybkin, who was Russia's top negotiator with the Chechen authorities, said he had "concrete evidence" that the attacks on General Bargishev and the mufti were "the work of outsiders from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, who came to Chechnya back in the time of the fighting".

But Chechnya's first deputy security minister, Abu Movsayev, said the Russian military may have been behind the killing.