Rebels in Ingushetia Target Police and Servicemen

Interfax reported on February 3 that a bomb blast damaged a police car in the village of Surkhakhi in Ingushetia’s Malgobek district. A law-enforcement source told the news agency that the improvised explosive device, which consisted of 400 grams of TNT, a mobile phone and an electric fuse, went off before bomb disposal experts arrived but that no one was injured in the explosion. Interfax reported on February 2 that a homemade bomb was planted under a police car in the village of Sagopshi, also in Ingushetia’s Malgobek district, but that the device was successfully defused.

Interfax reported on January 30 that a car belonging to a police psychologist had come under fire the previous day near the village of Yandare in Ingushetia’s Nazran district. The police psychologist fired back at the attackers, who fled, and no one was hurt in the incident. Interfax also reported that a criminal case had been opened in connection with the January 29 attack on the car of a traffic police officer near the Kavkaz federal highway in Ingushetia’s Barsuki municipal district. The officer, LIeutenant Israil Sultygov, was shot and seriously wounded in the attack.

Interfax reported on January 29 that two servicemen were killed and several wounded in a shootout with rebels on the outskirts of the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district, located on the republic’s administrative border with Chechnya. Also on January 29, a bomb was found in a shopping center in Nazran and defused, Interfax reported.