Servicemen, Militants and a Senior FSB Officer Die in Ingushetia Violence

The Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor General’s Office for Ingushetia confirmed on September 17 that four servicemen were killed that day in an attack on Interior Ministry troops in Ingushetia. Itar-Tass reported that the four servicemen were traveling in a Ural truck on the Galashki-Datykh highway when it came under fire and that they “died on the spot.” Interfax quoted Vasily Panchenkov, an aide to the commander of the federal Interior Ministry’s Internal Troops, as saying that the bodies of four Interior Ministry servicemen were found with gunshot wounds by an armed patrol near the village of Galashki. According to Reuters, a source in the investigative department of the Ingush Prosecutor’s Office told Interfax later that the soldiers had probably been shot from a nearby forest.

Kavkazky Uzel reported on September 15 that the first deputy head of the Ingush branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Aleksandr Nagovitsyn, was killed during a special operation in the village of Verkhnie Achaluki in Ingushetia’s Malgobek district. According to the website, a total of four law-enforcement officers were killed and eight wounded during the special operation in Verkhnie Achaluki. According to various reports, two or three militants were also killed in the operation. Kavkazky Uzel quoted an Ingush Interior Ministry source as saying: “The operation to neutralize the NVF [illegal armed formation] participants who hid in private home [number] 49 on Zarechnaya Street began on Sunday [September 14] and was completed late in the evening today [September 15]. The underground gang members were offered the chance to put down their weapons, but they put up armed resistance.”

Newsru.com on September 15 quoted Ingushetia’s chief prosecutor, Yury Turygin, as saying that three militants were killed and a large quantity of weapons and ammunitions were seized during the security operation in Verkhnie Achaluki. According to Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry, security forces used large-caliber machineguns and grenade launchers in the operation, which lasted more than ten hours.

On September 12, someone shot at a car being driven by Musa Kodzoev, head of the criminal investigation department of the city Karabulak. No one was hurt in the incident. Also on September 12, Timur Khutiev, a former employee of a private security firm in Nazran, was shot to death at the entrance of his apartment building. That same day, gunmen fired on a police post in Ingushetia’s Malgobek district manned by Interior Ministry personnel from Khabarovsk Krai who are currently stationed in the republic. No one was hurt in that incident. Late in the evening of September 11, gunmen attacked a home in Nazran belonging to Daud Atigov, brother of Khasan Atigov, head of the “Daimohk” Ingush national movement. Kavkazky Uzel reported that the attackers fired automatic weapons and grenade launchers at the home, which caught fire. According to the website, members of Daud Atigov’s family were injured and hospitalized, but he himself was not hurt.