BOMBS SET OFF IN INGUSHETIA

Publication: North Caucasus Weekly Volume: 6 Issue: 34

An explosive device detonated on the side of the Kavkaz federal highway in Ingushetia’s main city, Nazran, on September 14, Itar-Tass reported. The blast occurred as a UAZ vehicle carrying officers from the Ingushetian Interior Ministry’s patrol and checkpoint service was passing by. The ministry said there were no casualties and the vehicle sustained only slight damage. The blast, however, left a crater two meters across and 60 centimeters deep. Also on September 14, ingushetiya.ru reported that a base station of the mobile phone operator Beeline had been blown up in the Nazran district village of Surkhakhi. According to the website, Beeline had just started to operate in Ingushetia and the explosion “postponed the appearance of a new cellular competitor in the republic.” On September 6, an antenna belonging to Megafon, which controls practically the entire cellular phone market in Ingushetia, was blown up.

Two makeshift roadside bombs went off in the Ingushetian city of Malgobek on September 10, injuring a police officer who was driving by on his way to work, Reuters reported. Just hours later, an explosive device blew up near a pipeline transporting gas from North Ossetia to Georgia, but did not damage it. A local emergencies ministry spokesman said the blast occurred on Ingushetia’s border with North Ossetia, but noted that gas supplies were not interrupted. The pipeline has been the target of a number of attacks in the past. On September 9, police personnel defused a homemade explosive device that was discovered on the outskirts of the Nazran district settlement of Barsuki. Ingushetian Interior Ministry sources told Kavkazky Uzel that the device was made from two 120-millimeter artillery shells and a radio-controlled detonator.