Militants Target Dagestani Law Enforcement Personnel in Republic Capital

Unidentified attackers shot up the home of a policeman in the village of Sergokala in Dagestan’s Sergokalinsky district late yesterday (November 11). The gunmen fired automatic weapons but no one was hurt in the incident, which capped a particularly violent day in Dagestan, with eleven people dying in several attacks in Makhachkala, the republic’s capital. Seven policemen were killed and another policeman and six passersby were wounded in the attacks. Four of the attackers died when a car in which they were trying to escape in blew up, reportedly when police fired at the car detonating the explosives the militants were transporting in the vehicle. According to some reports, a total of five militants were involved in the attacks in Makhachkala.

The incidents began around 1:00 pm, local time, in the center of Makhachkala when the group of armed attackers stole a car belonging to traffic policeman and used it first to rob a store and then to attack two police vehicles. According to some reports, at least one other shootout between the militants and police took place in the center of the city (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 11-12; www.newsru.com, November 11).

Following the attacks in Makhachkala, Federal Security Service (FSB) bomb disposal experts defused a bomb found in a car abandoned by militants in the city. Russian National Anti-Terrorism Center sources said the device consisted of a three-liter plastic container filled with explosives and metal fragments, and that it also had a time fuse. The bomb would have exploded with the force of three kilograms of TNT (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, Interfax, November 11).

The attacks in Makhachkala were just the latest targeting of Dagestani law-enforcement personnel. On November 10, unidentified gunmen attacked a Road Patrol Service (DPS) checkpoint on the Kizlyar-Krainovka road near the village of Karl Marx in the republic’s Kizlyar district, killing one policeman and wounding another four to five policemen and a local woman. On the evening of November 9, a serviceman was wounded near the village of Inchkhe in Dagestan’s Karabudakhkentsky district when an improvised explosive device went off as a convoy of Russian interior ministry internal troops was passing by. An interior ministry source said the improvised explosive device (IED) had the force of 4-5 kilograms of TNT and was filled with slices of metal wire to serve as shrapnel (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 10)

Also on November 9, police in Dagestan discovered and defused an IED found in a car in the village of Severny in the Dagestani city of Khasavyurt. A National Anti-Terrorism Committee source told ITAR-TASS that the IED consisted of a 65-liter plastic container filled with ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, bolts, screws and gravel. The bomb, which weighed 70 kilograms, included a detonator made out of a remote car door lock opener (www.newsru.com, November 11).

On November 8, a policeman in Dagestan’s Kazbeksky district discovered an IED attached to the bottom of his car as he was washing the vehicle. The bomb, which consisted of a 200-gram stick of TNT, ball bearings and a detonator with four batteries, was defused (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 9).

On November 7, a deputy of the Khasavyurt district assembly, Ibragim Ibragimov, was wounded when his home was shot up by unidentified attackers firing automatic weapons (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 7). On November 6, a bomb went off near the home of the chairman of the Audit Chamber of the city of Buinaksk, Dzhalak Aseyev. No one was hurt in that incident (www.newsru.com, November 7).

On November 5, a Russian interior ministry internal troops’ serviceman was killed and three were wounded in a shootout with militants in a wooded area near the Dagestani town of Izberbash. Some 7-10 rebel fighters were reportedly involved in the battle (www.newsru.com, November 5).

In Chechnya, a Russian interior ministry internal troops’ serviceman was killed in a bomb blast in the republic’s Urus-Martan district on November 9. The incident took place as an interior troops unit was conducting reconnaissance operations in a wooded area near the village of Tangi-Chu (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 10)

In Ingushetia, two bombs went off in a liquor store in the center of the city of Malgobek on November 9. No one was hurt in the incident but the shop was seriously damaged (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 9).

In Kabardino-Balkaria, unidentified attackers shot up a car belonging to the local affiliate of the Russian state oil company Rosneft as it was driving through the republic’s Baksan district on November 7. A 21-year-old driver for Rosneft-KBR was wounded in the attack (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 8).