Briefs

Militants Kill Police in Karachaevo-Cherkessia

The Associated Press reported on September 14 that one police officer was shot to death and two wounded in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. The news agency quoted the republic’s Interior Ministry as saying that two unidentified militants gunned down a police colonel in front of his house and also riddled a traffic police car with bullets, wounding two officers inside.

Attacks Wound Zapad Battalion Commander, Kill Chechen Prosecutor’s Bodyguards

On September 17, unidentified gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying four members of the Defense Ministry’s Chechen-manned Zapad (West) battalion, including its commander, Beslan Edilkhanov. Utro.ru reported on September 18 that one serviceman, a 25-year-old private, was killed in the attack, while Edilkhanov was seriously wounded. A third serviceman was also wounded in the attack. Two policemen were shot to death by an unidentified gunman in Grozny’s Zavodsky district on September 12. A Southern Federal District law-enforcement source told Interfax that the slain policemen were members of Chechen chief prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov’s security detail.

Former Commander of Russian Forces in Chechnya Dies in Plane Crash

General Gennady Troshev, the former commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, was among the 88 people killed on September 14 when a Boeing-737-500 passenger jet operated by Aeroflot subsidiary Aeroflot Nord and flying from Moscow crashed on the outskirts of the Ural Mountains city of Perm. Russian accident investigators ruled out terrorism as the cause for the crash and were focusing on the possibilities of pilot error or engine failure. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov announced on September 14 that a street in the Chechen capital Grozny would be named after Troshev. Back in 2001, Troshev, who received a Hero of Russia award for his service, called for the public hanging of Chechen rebel fighters.