DAGESTANI POLICE ARREST SUSPECTED MILITANTS

Police in Dagestan reported on May 3 that they had found evidence of plans to organize attacks against Dagestani officials in the homes of three detained militants. A source in the Makhachkala police headquarters told Itar-Tass that while searching the home of Magomed Kuramagomedov, they found a list of top republican law-enforcement officials, photos of administration buildings, a remote control panel of a bomb, and “extremist leaflets.” According to the source, police confiscated a 200-gram TNT stick, a timing device, a fuse from a hand grenade and a bomb connection scheme from the house of Nasrula Nasrulayev, and another 200-gram TNT stick, timing device, list of government employees and photos of administrative buildings from the home of Shamil Abakarov, who was a messenger for the group. The militants were detained during a special operation conducted by police, FSB, republican and federal Interior Ministry personnel on April 20, Kavkazky Uzel reported on May 1. Dozens of police and FSB officers have been murdered in Dagestan over the last year.

Meanwhile, the government-backed Rossiiskaya gazeta newspaper reported on May 4 that two brothers who participated in Shamil Basaev’s fall 1999 raid on Dagestan’s Tsumadinsky and Novolaksk districts, Artur and Rustam Ismailov, were captured in Dagestan’s Khasavyurt district.