Insurgency-related violence reported in Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya

The head of the Dagestani branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Muslim Dakhkhaev, was wounded in an attack in Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, yesterday (October 13).  The attack occurred just before 9 p.m., local time, when unidentified gunmen shot and threw grenades at the Mercedes in which Dakhkhaev was traveling. Dakhkhaev was hospitalized with wounds to his face and left thigh. His driver was more seriously wounded in the attack. Police later found 27 5.45 mm shell casings at the site of the attack. Dakhkhaev’s bodyguards managed to fire back at the attackers, wounding one of them. The wounded attacker, however, managed to escape and take refuge in a five-story apartment building that, according to reports late yesterday, was surrounded by commandos. Another participant in the attack was reportedly captured. Police reported also finding the body of a dead man near the site of the attack on Dakhkhaev and that attempts were being made to identify the body (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 13-14; www.newsru.com, October 13).

On October 11, a policeman was shot to death in Dagestan’s Khasavyurt district. The incident occurred in the village of Mutsalaul when the car in which the officer was driving came under fire. The policeman, who was later identified as 33-year-old Sakhratula Samadov, died on the spot. Police found 12 5.45 mm shell casings from a Kalashnikov automatic rifle at the site of the attack (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 12).

Also on October 11, police in Dagestan’s Levashinsky district found and defused an improvised explosive device. The bomb was discovered on the Khadzhalmakhi–Gergebil highway, just several hundred meters from the site of the September 28 bomb attack on the convoy of the head of the Gergebisky district. That bombing killed six people, including a policeman, but the district head escaped unharmed (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 11).

Two other incidents were reported in Dagestan on October 11. An explosive device detonated near the front gate of a house in the village of Shamkhal. The blast damaged the gate but the home’s 47-year-old occupant was unharmed. In the other incident, unidentified gunmen in Makhachkala opened fire on a car in which an off-duty traffic policeman and two of his friends were driving. One of the men was killed, while the policeman and the other man were wounded and hospitalized (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 11).

On October 8, security forces found a roadside bomb in Dagestan’s Sergokalinsky district. The device, which was discovered on the Sergokala–Urakhi highway along with electric wires, batteries and other detonating components, contained ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder and would have exploded with the force of 3 kilograms of TNT. The device was destroyed in a controlled explosion (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 9).

In Kabardino-Balkaria, a police major was wounded in an attack on October 11. The incident took place in the village of Blagoveschenka when the major and another policeman went to check on the reported theft of a vehicle and found two apparent suspects, who opened fire when they were asked for their IDs. The suspects managed to escape (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 12).

Also on October 11 in Kabardino-Balkaria, police seized a RGD-5 grenade and ammunition from a resident of the village of Lesken-2 whose car had been stopped at a police post on the Kavkaz federal highway (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 11).

On October 10, police in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Elbrus district seized an IED from a resident of the village of Bylym. The bomb, which was discovered under the resident’s bed, had explosives equivalent to 200 grams of TNT, along with bolts and screws that were to serve as shrapnel, a detonator and a fuse (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 11).

On October 9, unidentified gunmen shot the 57-year-old director of a sports training center in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Elbrus district. The incident took place in the city of Tyrnyauz. The director died in the hospital from multiple gunshot wounds. That same day, an alleged member of “illegal armed formations” was detained near the village of Zvezdnyi in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Chegem district. On October 8, two alleged rebels were killed in a shootout with security forces on the outskirts of Tyrnyauz. One of the two slain alleged rebels was identified as the leader of the Tyrnyauz underground, 36-year-old Rustam Benigerov (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, October 8-9).

The two slain rebels are suspected of involvement in the murder of two employees of the Baksan Neutrino Observatory on October 7. The two employees of the physics research facility, a married couple identified as Dzhamal Guliev and Marina Kozhemyakina, were killed by two attackers who broke into their apartment in the village of Neitrino, shot them and stole their possessions and documents, which were found at a rebel camp after the two rebels were killed. The observatory is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Nuclear Research (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, AFP, October 8).

In Chechnya, a policeman was seriously wounded in an explosion in the republic’s Shatoi district on October 11. The incident took place when an IED detonated as local police and Interior Ministry troops were searching for rebels in the mountainous district (www.kavkaz.uzel.ru, October 12).

On October 10, a Chechen Interior Ministry sergeant was killed when a bomb went off on the outskirts of the village of Sernovodskaya in the republic’s Sunzha district (www.kavkaz.uzel.ru, October 11).