Insurgency-Related Violence Reported In Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria

Insurgents in the North Caucasus targeted police and local officials in Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria this past week.

Three policemen were shot to death in Nazran, Ingushetia yesterday (August 4). The incident took place around 10:30 p.m., local time, when a traffic police patrol car carrying four officers was fired on by gunmen who jumped out of another car. The incident took place near the building housing the republic’s migration service. Two policemen died on the spot while the third, identified as Magomed Cherkiev, died later in the hospital (www.newsru.com, www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 5).

In Dagestan yesterday (August 4), the Federal Security Service (FSB) defused an improvised explosive device (IED) discovered under a car belonging to a policeman in the city of Kizilyurt. The IED had been attached to the bottom of a vehicle with magnet (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 5).

A Russian serviceman was wounded yesterday (August 4) in a bomb blast in the Dagestani city of Buinaksk. According to the investigations department of the Dagestani branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the explosion took place around 1:30 p.m., local time, not far from a military post located on a roadside.

On the evening of August 3 in the Dagestani city of Kaspiisk, a car belonging to a local resident was hit by a bomb blast. The explosion, which according to the Dagestani interior ministry had the force of around 200 grams of TNT, set the vehicle on fire and burned it out completely, but no one was hurt in the incident (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 4).

The Dagestani interior ministry reported on August 3 that two bodies were found near the village of Khvaini-Kunda in Dagestan’s Tsumadinsky district. According to the ministry, the deceased were identified as Rasim Kurbanismailov, a 21 year-old native of the village of Gilyar in Dagestan’s Magaramkentsky district who was wanted for insurgent activity, and his “Sharia wife,” 23 year-old Amina Suleimanova, who came from Astrakhan. The ministry said Kurbanismailov was a member of the Tsumadinskaya rebel group, and that he and his wife were killed when an IED he was preparing accidently detonated (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 3).

Dagestan’s interior ministry also reported on August 3 that the head of Dagestan’s Untsukulsky district, Magomegadzhi Tagirov, along with his driver and bodyguard, had died in a Buinkask hospital one day after their car was hit by bomb blast. Tagirov’s son, who was also traveling in the car at the time of the explosion, died on the spot in the August 2 bombing. The IED, which had been attached to the underside of the car, exploded with the force of 400-500 grams of TNT and was packed with ball bearings.

According to the Kavkazsky Uzel website, law-enforcement believe the attack on Magomegadzhi Tagirov may have been carried out by militants under the command of Ibragim Gadzhidadaev, who have been operating in the Untsukulsky district for several years, specializing in extorting money from local businessmen and officials, robberies and kidnappings for ransom. The website said there had been reports that Tagirov had repeatedly been threatened by militants demanding payments “for jihad.” The day before the bomb attack, August 1, Tagirov participated in a meeting in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, chaired by the republic’s president, Magomedsalam Magomedov, on the issue of ensuring security and law and order in the republic’s municipalities. During the meeting, Tagirov reported on the “critical situation” in Untsukulsky district (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 3).

On August 2, around 150 residents of the village of Dzhemikent in Dagestan’s Derbent district blocked the Kavkaz federal highway to protest the detention by authorities earlier in the day of a 28 year-old fellow villager, who was allegedly caught with an AK-74 automatic rifle, several magazines and dozens of cartridges for it, a silencer for a Makarov pistol, pistol cartridges and four grams of marijuana. On July 15, a group of Dagestanis threatened to block the Kavkaz federal highway to protest violence against Muslims in the republic (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 3).

On August 1, four attackers shot up a car in which a police officer was traveling in the village of Stalsky in Dagestan’s Kizilyurt district. The officer, Senior Lieutenant Umar Temirkaev, the commander of a public order platoon of the interior ministry’s branch in Dagestan’s Khasavyurt district, was shot and died on the way to the hospital, while his driver and a woman traveling in the car were wounded and hospitalized. The attackers fired automatic weapons from two positions (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 2).

On July 31, two unidentified attackers shot up a cellular communications tower in Makhachkala. No one was hurt in the attack, but the tower was damaged, interfering with transmissions (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 1).

On the evening of July 30, an unidentified attacker shot a policeman at a traffic police post on the southern edge of Mackhachkala. The officer was hospitalized with a gunshot wound in the abdomen. According to the Investigative Committee, the policeman was shot by a sniper.

In the early hours of July 30, someone hurled an explosive device into the yard of a police officer’s home in the village of Uchkent in Dagestan’s Kumtorkalinsky district. No one was hurt in the incident (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 30).  

In Kabardino-Balkaria, a police captain, Aslan Asanov, was murdered on August 3. The incident took place in the early hours in the village of Baksanenok in the Baksan district, when three attackers broke into Asanov’s home and shot him with at least two pistols, killing him on the spot (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 3).

On August 2, an alleged rebel was killed on the outskirts of the city of Nartkala in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Urvansky district. According to the Investigative Committee, a 49-year-old local resident, Zalimgeri Zhemukov, opened fire on interior ministry and FSB personnel when they tried to stop his car, and he was killed by return fire (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 2).

On July 30, unidentified gunmen broke into the home of 29 year-old Murat Karachaev, an officer with the FSB branch in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Baksan district, and shot him to death. Kavkazsky Uzel quoted a source in the Investigative Committee as saying investigators believe the attack was carried out by “members of the so-called Baksan group of Kabardino-Balkaria militants, who recently gained a new leader – 27 year-old Zalim Tutov.” Karachaev’s 53 year-old father was wounded in the attack (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, August 1).