Dagestan Hit Again By Abductions and Armed Attacks

In Dagestan, a local resident was abducted yesterday (October 20) in the city of Dagstanskiye Ogni by a group of men wearing camouflage uniforms and masks. The incident happened around 12:30 p.m., local time, near the headquarters of the city tax inspectorate, when a vehicle cut off the car that the victim, identified as Ramazan Ramazanov, was driving along with his mother. The kidnappers jumped out of their vehicle, forced Ramazanov out of his car and into their vehicle and drove him off to an unknown destination. According to the victim’s father, just moments before the abduction, police had stopped and inspected Ramazanov’s car and found nothing suspicious. Ramazanov’s father said his son, who is married and has two children, is religious and was just six days away from leaving for Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj. Ramazanov’s relatives reported the abduction to the Dagestani branches of the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service (FSB), but the latter and other law-enforcement agencies said they had no information about the abduction (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 21).

Also on October 20, a 23-year-old man along with his 21-year-old wife surrendered to police during a special operation in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala. Police found a pistol belonging to the man during a search of the apartment where he was discovered along with his wife and their four-month-old daughter. The operation was carried out jointly by officers of the anti-extremism department of Dagestan’s Interior Ministry and FSB (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 21).

On October 20, one of three policemen wounded in an attack in Dagestan’s Kayakentsky district the previous day died in the hospital. The slain officer was identified as traffic police Lieutenant Tagir Pashaev. The attack took place when gunmen riding in a car shot up a road police unit near the village of Kayakent and then drove off. Police arriving at the site of the attack found 56 spent 7.62 mm cartridges and 42 spent 5.45 mm cartridges. The two other police officers wounded in the attack remain hospitalized (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 20).

On October 19, a police officer was wounded when police tried to stop a car that was leaving the village of Agvali in Dagestan’s Tsumadinsky district. Police managed to catch the shooter, who was identified as a resident of the Chechen capital Grozny, and seized a pistol from him (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 20).

A policeman was shot in the shin and shoulder in an attack in the city of Kaspiisk on October 18. Three gunmen reportedly fired on the car that the officer was driving, which was riddled with bullets. Investigators found 78 spent cartridges and four unused rounds of various calibers at the site of the attack. According to initial reports, the policeman was off duty at the time of the incident and was traveling with two friends, one of whom was killed in the attack while the other was wounded (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 18-19).

On October 17, a resident of the village of Druzhba in Dagestan’s Kayakentsky district, Kurban Gafarov, was kidnapped along with a friend, identified as Garun Kurbanov, by a group of armed men in civilian clothes. Gafarov’s son, Ramazan, told Kavkazsky Uzel that his father is a devout Muslim who is on a local police list of alleged “Wahhabis.” Ramazan Gavarov told the website that police last year planted marijuana on his father and tried to prosecute him on a drug charge but that the case fell apart (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 17).

On October 16, two men were found dead in a burned out car on the Manas-Sergokala highway in Dagestan’s Karabudakhkentsky district, while the bullet-riddled body of a third man was found on a roadside nearby. The dead men were identified as 57-year-old Magomeali Bagomedov, along with Kadimagomed Zagirbekov and Shamil Abdullaev, both of whom were 36 years old. Police found four spent 9 mm cartridges, nine spent 5.45 mm cartridges and 34 spent 7.62 mm cartridges at the scene (www.kavka-uzel.ru, October 17).

Also on October 16, police and a suspected rebel exchanged fire in the village of Tukhchar in Dagestan’s Novolaksky district. The incident occurred around 3:00 a.m., local time. No one was hurt in the incident, and the alleged insurgent escaped (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 16).

On October 15, Interior Ministry and FSB personnel discovered a suspected rebel dugout on the outskirts of the village of Kvanada in Dagestan’s Tsumadinsky district. Various items, including ammunition and provisions, were found in the dugout. That same day, a larger rebel base consisting of eight tents and an arms cache was discovered in Dagestan’s Khasavyurt district (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 16).

Also on October 15, a bomb went off in a food store in the village of Shamkhal in Dagestan’s Kirov district. The incident took place around 4:00 a.m., local time, and nobody was hurt in the blast. Islamist insurgents in Dagestan frequently target shops that sell alcoholic beverages (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 15).

In Ingushetia, unidentified gunmen shot up the home of Magomed Khamchiev, a policeman in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in the republic’s Sunzha district, on October 17. No one was hurt in the incident, which took place around 9 p.m., local time (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 18).

On October 13, Bilan Sheikhov, a resident of the village of Sredniye Achaulki in Ingushetia’s Malgobek district, was killed by a bomb blast in a wooded area near the Karabulak-Sredniye Achaulki highway. Fragments of an apparent improvised explosive device were reportedly found near the body of Sheikov, whose relatives reported him missing on October 3. Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry suggested Sheikhov was connected to the republic’s rebel underground (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 14).