Gunmen killed a news anchor employed by a local affiliate of a Russian state television channel in Nalchik, a town in the North Caucasus region, shooting him in the head late Wednesday. The journalist, Kazbek Gekkiyev, 28, had reported on the Islamic insurgency active in the region and “was killed most likely in retaliation for his work,” said Vladimir Markin, the spokesman for the federal Investigative Committee, a law enforcement agency, in comments carried by the Interfax news agency. Mr. Markin said the attack appeared to be “a warning to other journalists” who were involved in news coverage about the government’s campaign against insurgents. President Vladimir V. Putin condemned the shooting on Thursday, saying the killers had violated the victim’s “right to live and also the right to disseminate information.” In a separate attack on Thursday in Nalchik, a car bomb wounded a deputy regional minister of transportation.