Police and Officials Targeted in Ingushetia

There were also numerous attacks on police and other officials in Ingushetia over the past week. The republic’s deputy mufti, Kombulat Zyazikov, was shot and wounded by unknown attackers on July 24. Itar-Tass reported that Zyazikov was traveling in an automobile on the Nazran-Karabulak highway when the attack took place. The Associated Press (AP), however, reported that Zyazikov was shot near his home in Nazran and quoted police as saying he was in the hospital in stable condition. According to AP, Zyazikov was shot in the knee and shoulder. Interfax reported that Kombulat Zyazikov is a close relative of Ingushetia’s president, Murat Zyazikov.

Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 24 that seven people were injured when a bomb went off outside a house belonging to Isa Korigov, head of criminal investigation department of the town of Malgobek. The website quoted law-enforcement sources in Ingushetia as saying that someone had fired a grenade launcher at Korigov’s home in Malgobek and that the bombing took place after police who had been summoned following the grenade attack arrived at the home. Korigov was among the seven people injured in the blast. RIA Novosti quoted local residents who live near Korigov’s house as saying they heard automatic weapons fire followed by several large explosions.

Also on July 24, unidentified gunmen opened fire on the home of the chairman of Ingushetia’s government, Kharun Dzeitov, in Nazran’s elite Tsentr-Kamaz district. No one was hurt in the attack. At around the same time, unidentified gunmen fired on a car in which a couple and their young children were traveling in Nazran’s Altievsky municipal district. No one was hurt in that incident. That same day, unknown attackers fired on a car being driven by Magomet Bogatyrev, a government specialist in geological surveying and natural resources from Rostov-on-Don. The incident took place not far from a police checkpoint near the settlement of Barsuki. Neither Bogatyrev nor the members of his family with whom he was traveling were hurt. Bogatyrev, who had driven to Ingushetia to attend a funeral, told police that the gunmen who fired at his car had been standing in the road next to two automobiles and that several of them were wearing camouflage uniforms.

On July 18, unidentified gunmen fired on a column of vehicles carrying members of the 126th regiment of the Interior Ministry’s Internal Troops as it was traveling on the highway connecting the villages of Barsuki and Gazi-Yurt in Ingushetia. Six servicemen were wounded in the attack, Kavkazky Uzel reported. On July 17, an OMON police commando was wounded in an armed attack that took place near an OMON base in the city of Karabulak.