Attacks reported in Kabardino-Balkaria, Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya

Despite Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin’s, announcement of a new plan to overhaul the economy of the North Caucasus, there was little sign of a let-up in insurgency related violence in the region this week.

A large improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near the village of Verkhny Baksan in Kabardino-Balkaria on July 15. The device went off with the estimated force of five kilograms of TNT on the Prokhladnyi-Azau road. No one was hurt in the incident. Also on July 15, an alleged “illegal armed formation” member was shot and killed in the republican capital, Nalchik (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 16).
On July 14, a police staff sergeant was wounded when a road patrol post on the Caucasus federal highway on the outskirts of Nalchik came under fire. Several minutes after that attack, an IED went off 100 meters from the road patrol post. No one was hurt in the explosion.

On July 11, a bomb went off underneath the car of the chief of police Kabardino-Balkaria’s Elbrus district, and another homemade bomb was found underneath a car belonging to the head of the district police’s criminal investigation department. That bomb was defused. No one was hurt in either of those incidents. That same day, a bomb went off underneath a car parked at a shopping area in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Chegem district. No one was hurt in that incident, and a fire triggered by the blast was put out.

In the early hours of July 11, a radio relay station was blown up in Tyrnauz, Kabardino-Balkaria, retransmitting units were set on fire in the villages of Terskol and Sarmakovo and a cellular phone tower was set on fire in the city of Baksan (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 11).

In Dagestan, security forces stormed a home in the city of Khasavyurt on July 15, killing two suspected members of “illegal armed formations” who allegedly put up armed resistance. The dead rebels were identified as Marid Tataev and Anzor Gadzhiev. Also on July 15, Artur Suleimanov, a pastor with the Dagestani branch of the Hosanna Church, the largest Pentecostal Church in Dagestan, was shot and killed in Makhachkala.

Also on July 15, a bomb went off as an armored train was travelling the Tarki-Manas route on the North Caucasus railway line. No one was hurt in the incident (www.newsru.com, July 15). On July 14, the head of administration of the central Dagestani village of Kirov-Aul, Sakhratula Malikov, was shot dead as he was heading to his car (AP, July 15).

In another incident in Dagestan on July 15, unidentified attackers fired on a traffic police post in the village of Sergokala. No one was hurt in the incident. Several hours earlier, gunmen had fired on the home of a police sergeant on the outskirts of Sergokala. The sergeant fired back at the attackers. Neither he nor members of his family were hurt in the incident (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 15).

On July 13, gunmen fired on a car in which a group of young people were traveling on the outskirts of the Dagestani city of Derbent, killing one and wounding three. On July 12, the deputy head of the criminal investigation department of the Khasavyurt police department, Akhmed Gadzhiev, was shot by gunmen as he was driving his car. He died on the way to the hospital (www.kavkaz.uzel.ru, July 13).

On July 11, a freight train carrying grain was derailed by an explosion near the Dagestani village of Achi-Isberbash (RIA Novosti, July 12). On the evening of July 11, police lieutenant Rasul Magomedov was wounded by gunmen firing from a car in the village of Gubden in Dagestan’s Karabudakhkentsky district. The incident took place near the village’s police department. Magomedov died of his wounds. Magomedov’s father, who was the Gubden police chief, was murdered two years ago, and Magomedov’s mother, aunt and sister were killed in November 2009 in an explosion at the grave of his father. Also on the evening of July 11, gunmen in Khasavyurt fired on the car in which the head of the city’s criminal police was driving, seriously wounding his wife. In yet another incident in Dagestan on July 11, gunmen fired on police after being stopped at a traffic police checkpoint, wounding two policemen and a civilian. One of the policemen later died in the hospital (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 12).

In Ingushetia, a bomb disposal expert was wounded on July 14 when an explosive device went off on the outskirts of the village of Dattykh in the republic’s Sunzha district. On July 13, two suspected rebels were killed, one was wounded and another was captured during a special operation in the Sunzha district village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya. Two policemen were wounded during the special operation (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 14).

In Chechnya, gunmen attacked a cellular phone base station on the outskirts of the village of Tsa-Vedeno in the republic’s Vedeno district on July 12. No one was hurt in the incident. That same day, a policeman was shot to death as he was arriving home from work in the Staropromyslovsky district of Grozny, the Chechen capital.