Militants, Security Forces Battle in Ingushetia’s Ordzhonikidzevskaya

Itar-Tass, citing Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry, provided details of a special operation to “neutralize militants” carried out in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district, on March 26, during which a militant holed up in an apartment building was reportedly killed and two women detained. The slain militant was not indentified, while the two women were identified by their last names, Izmailova and Mutalieva. According to Newsru.com, Mutalieva had been reported missing by relatives several days earlier and is the sister of several militants killed during earlier security operations. Ingushetia.org reported that one of her brothers, Khasan Mutaliev, blew himself up on February 13 during a special operation, while her younger brother, Khusein Mutaliev, was shot and killed by a “death squad” in front of their mother on March 15, 2007.

Newsru.com reported that the special operation in Ordzhonikidzevskaya was launched after several people were blockaded in a two-story apartment building in the village, after which they opened fire on security forces, shouting “Allahu Akbar!”

Itar-Tass reported that a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer was wounded during the shootout, while Newsru.com cited sources in Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry as saying that three interior ministry officers were seriously wounded. Ingushetia.org reported that several FSB officers involved in storming the apartment building had been wounded, and cited witnesses as saying the injured officers were taken from the site of the battle by ambulances. The website said there were reports of both dead and wounded among the security forces, as well of wounded civilians. It also reported that armored personnel carriers were used in the operation, with a helicopter gunship also at the scene, and that a Ural military truck had been hit by a rocket propelled grenade.

Also on March 26, a policeman in Ordzhonikidzevskaya was severely wounded when an explosive device that had been placed under his car detonated, Kavkazky Uzel reported.

Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen fired on a car that the deputy head of the anti-organized department (UBOP) of Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry, Bashir Aushev, was driving in the village of Ekazhevo, in Ingushetia’s Nazran district, on March 26. According to Interfax, gunmen in a silver VAZ-2114 shot at the VAZ-2115 that Aushev was driving. Aushev was wounded in the attack and hospitalized.

On March 25, unidentified attackers in a car using automatic weapons fired at a shop that sells alcoholic beverages in Nazran. Security guards at the shop and shop employees returned fire, and the ensuing gun battle lasted ten minutes, Kavkazky Uzel reported. No one was hurt in the incident. “Attacks on public catering establishments and sales outlets at which alcoholic beverages, among other things, are sold, take place regularly in various cities in Ingushetia,” Kavkazky Uzel noted.

On March 24, unidentified attackers fired from a vehicle at a group of bomb disposal specialists from the Interior Ministry’s Interior Troops who were working along the side of the Kantyshevo-Nazran road. No one was hurt in the incident.

Interfax reported on March 23 that two unidentified gunmen were killed after they carried out a drive-by shooting targeting police officers in the town of Karabulak. An Ingushetian Interior Ministry spokesman told the news agency that the policemen returned fire, killing the two gunmen, and that a policeman was wounded in the exchange of fire. The two killed in the shootout were identified as 42-year-old Mukhamed-Bashir Albakov, a local resident, and 24-year-old Islam Patiev, who, according to Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry, was wanted for attacks on law-enforcement personnel.

Yet, Kavkazky Uzel quoted local residents as saying that the incident was a case of extra-judicial killing by security personnel because the policemen had not allowed one of the alleged gunmen who had been shot and wounded to be taken to the hospital, after which he died of his wounds.  

Kavkazky Uzel reported that on March 22, unidentified attackers fired a grenade launcher at the Sharan restaurant and sauna in Karabulak. No one was hurt in the incident.

Gunmen attacked a traffic police checkpoint on the Caucasus federal highway on the outskirts of Nazran’s Nasy-Kor municipal district on March 22, Interfax reported. No one was hurt in the attack, while two police cars were slightly damaged.