Attacks Continue in Ingushetia

A car belonging to an official believed to be a relative of Musa Medov, Ingushetia’s Interior Minister, was blown up in Nazran on October 8. The opposition Ingushetia.org website reported that a powerful explosion took place 100 meters from the Interior Ministry building in Nazran while Itar-Tass quoted a source as saying that the explosion was an attempt on the life of Daud Medov, the deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s vehicle maintenance department. According to Newsru.com, the blast was caused by an explosive device that was attached to the undercarriage of Medov’s Lada Priora car and that the bomb went off when the car was parked outside his home and as Medov had left his home and gone outside. Neither Medov nor anyone else was hurt in the blast, but the car was burned out.

Ingushetia.org confirmed that the destroyed car belonged to Ingush Interior Minister Musa Medov’s nephew, noting that Medov himself was recently the target of a failed attack by a suicide bomber (North Caucasus Weekly, October 3). As Newsru.com noted, Musa Medov is among those blamed by Ingushetia’s opposition for the August 31 killing of opposition website founder Magomed Yevloev and that Yevloev’s relatives declared a blood feud against those they accuse of murdering him, including Medov and Ingushetia’s president, Murat Zyazikov.

On October 6, unidentified attackers fired on a Mercedes that was being driven in Nazran by Anzor Zyazikov, a legal advisor at an antenna production facility. Zyazikov was not hurt but a passenger riding with him—identified as Magomed Albakov—was killed. Interfax quoted a source in the press service of the Investigative Committee for Ingushetia as saying the attackers fired on the Mercedes from a silver VAZ-2114 car. Russian news sources pointed to the fact that the apparent target of the attack has the same last name as Ingushetia’s president, but there was no indication that they are relatives. Another attack took place on October 6 when, according to Ingushetia.org, a car being driven by Akhmed Kotiev, deputy chairman of the Ingush public movement “People’s Assembly of Ingushetia” came under fire. Ingushetia.org quoted Kotiev as saying that two attackers fired on his car from a VAZ-2017 automobile. No one was hurt in the incident.

Itar-Tass reported on October 5 that an explosive device went off near the prosecutor’s office in Ingushetia’s Sunzhensky district. The explosive device was placed beneath a Ford Escort car belonging to a prosecutor’s office security guard that was parked near the building. No one was hurt in the blast. RIA Novosti reported on October 5 that a police officer was killed when unidentified assailants opened fire on a police patrol vehicle in Ingushetia. The news agency did not indicate exactly where the incident took place, but reported that police were searching for a Lada car used by the assailants.

Itar-Tass reported on October 4 that an explosion took place in the city of Malgobek near the building of the district office of the Federal Security Service (FSB) department for Ingushetia. The news agency, citing republican police, said an explosive device had been planted under a car parked near the building. No one was hurt in the explosion and the building was slightly damaged (see Mairbek Vatchagaev’s article below).