Briefs

Security Forces, Militants Killed in Chechnya Skirmishes

Russian Interior Ministry officers killed two militants in a wooded area near the village of Kerla-Yurt in Chechnya’s Groznensky district, Interfax reported on December 3. A law-enforcement source told the news agency that none of the policemen was hurt and that they had seized weapons and explosives that the rebels had stockpiled. Two Russian servicemen were injured on December 2 when a mine went off as they were patrolling forested mountains in Chechnya’s southern Vedeno region, the Associated Press reported. Interfax reported on November 29 that security forces killed two rebel fighters and captured three in a forest just outside the village of Proletarskoye in Chechnya’s Groznensky district. Interfax cited on November 28 that the headquarters of the Combined Group of Forces reported that a policeman was killed and five others wounded in a clash with more than 20 rebel fighters in Chechnya’s Nozhai-Yurt district near the administrative border with Dagestan.  

FSB Chief Says North Caucasus Security Situation Remains Difficult

Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Aleksandr Bortnikov said on November 27 that the fight against terrorism in Russia remains difficult, particularly in the North Caucasus, Interfax reported. “The level of terrorist crimes in the country, especially in the North Caucasus, has remained high,” Bortnikov told the heads of anti-terrorist commissions in regions of the Central Federal District during a meeting in the town of Krasnogorsk (Moscow Oblast). Bortnikov said armed attacks by “criminals” on the authorities in Ingushetia, Dagestan and Chechnya, as well as “the escalation of the situation in regions adjacent to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone,” constitute “threats to Russia’s national interests and its security.”