20 November 2013, 21:26
Northern Caucasus one year before Olympics; chronicle of terror acts
On February 7, 2014, Sochi will host the opening ceremony of the 22nd Winter Olympic Games. In the context of the ongoing conflict in Northern Caucasus, the "Caucasian Knot" publishes a chronicle of subversive actions and terror acts committed during the pre-Olympic year in the territory of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and the Southern Federal District (SFD).
According to calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources, during the period of January 1-November 20, 2013, 31 terror acts were committed in the territory of the NCFD and SFD. Six terror acts were committed with involvement of suicide bombers: four – by male and two – by female suicide bombers.
In total, starting from 2000, the territory of Russia saw 78 terror acts, involving 121 suicide bombers. In 2000-2012, 26 terror acts were committed with involvement of 46 female suicide bombers.
On November 9, at about 8:50 p.m. Moscow time, near a dairy in Makhachkala, unidentified persons tried to undermine an UAZ police van. There were three policemen in the van; and one of them got a minor contusion.
On November 8, at about 11:30 a.m. Moscow time, an explosive device detonated at the store "24 Hours", located in the intersection of Kotrov and Yaragsky Streets in Makhachkala. As a result of the explosion, one person was killed, and another one was wounded.
On October 30, in Makhachkala (Dagestan), four unidentified person used a car hijacked from a local resident and planted two bombs at two stores in the city centre. At about 5:00 p.m., two explosions occurred with the time interval of four minutes. As a result, 17 persons were wounded, and one person was killed.
On October 21, in Volgograd, in Lazorevaya Street, in a LiAZ bus that was on the route "State University-'Yubileiny' Cinema", a female suicide bomber triggered an explosive device. As a result of the explosion, seven persons, including the female suicide bomber herself, were killed, and 32 persons were brought to city hospitals. According to the preliminary information, reported by investigators, the suicide bombing in the bus was committed by Naida Asiyalova, a 30-year-old native of Dagestan. According to the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), not long before that she entered Islam and she was the wife of one of the leaders of illegal armed formations (IAFs).
On September 23, in the village of Khuchni, the centre of the Tabasaran District of Dagestan, an explosion occurred not far from the building of the ROVD (District Interior Division). The explosion was classified as a terror act; and investigators found that it had been committed by a suicide bomber. As a result of the explosion, a policeman and a staff member of the Federal Migration Service (FMS) were killed. According to the Dagestani Prosecutor's Office, 14 policemen and two civilians were hospitalized with wounds.
On September 16, in Chechnya, a suicide bomber committed a terror act near the building of the Sunzha ROVD in the village of Sernovodskaya. As a result, three policemen were killed, and four others were wounded. On the same day, in Ingushetia, in the village of Nesterovskaya, a car exploded in a shootout. As a result, one policeman was killed, and three others were wounded. Prior to the incident, a man with an explosive device was detained near the Sunzha ROVD of Ingushetia. He was identified as a certain Sulambek Machukaev, a resident of Chechnya. According to the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC), he intended to commit a terror act similar to the one that occurred in Sernovodskaya.
On September 7, in Derbent, near the GOVD (City Interior Division), unidentified persons blew up a car belonging to a policeman. As a result, the policeman was killed; he was a member of the special combat team of the Dagestani Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), an elite unit engaged in counterterrorist operations.
On August 4, at about 9:30 p.m., in Makhachkala, an explosion occurred in a grocery store that sold alcoholic beverages. The explosive device was an improvised one, with incendiary stuffing. As a result of the explosion, a security guard and a saleswoman suffered, their wounds were not fatal. The store was put on fire. According to the latest data, after the explosion at the store "24 Hours" in Makhachkala, 16 persons sought medical care; and two persons were hospitalized.
On June 28, at about midday, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated under a car belonging to a border guard from the Department for Derbent (Dagestan) of the Russian FSB. As a result of the explosion, Lieutenant of the Border Guard Service was hospitalized; and his wounds were found to be grave.
On June 19, in the cafe "Korona" (Crown) located on Federal Highway "Kavkaz" in the village of Kuba-Taba of Kabardino-Balkaria, unidentified persons triggered an explosive device. 10 minutes later, a VAZ-21099 car with two residents of the village of Nizhny Kurkuzhin drove up to the cafe. They got under fire: initially they were shelled from the nearby forest from an RPG-26 grenade launcher, and then attacked by automatic gunfire. Both men got non-fatal gunshot wounds. According to the MIA of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), residents of the city of Baksan are suspected of the explosion. One of them is on the federal wanted list as a member of an illegal armed formation (IAF), and the other is listed as a missing person.
At night on June 9, in Buynaksk, unidentified persons blew up a Mercedes car belonging to a local resident. An IED was fixed underneath the car. As a result, the driver with shrapnel wounds to his lower extremities was brought to the Central City Hospital (CCH) of Buynaksk.
On June 8, in the outskirts of the village of Orta-Stal in the Suleiman-Stal District of Dagestan, a car belonging to a policeman was blown up. The senior sergeant of the patrol-and-post service (known as PPS) of the local ROVD, who was driving the car, was heavily wounded.
On June 6, in the village of Shamilkala of the Untsukul District of Dagestan, a car belonging to a policeman was blown up. A homemade bomb detonated when the policeman drove 100 meters away from the ROVD building. According to a local resident, one policeman was killed and two more wounded. However, the Dagestani MIA confirmed the death of one policeman and a contusion of another one.
On May 28, at 7:00 a.m., in Derbent, unidentified persons blew up a VAZ-2107 car. At that time, a van with border guards drove by the place. According to the ICRF for Dagestan, as a result, two border guards were slightly injured by broken glass. Officials from the Caspian Border Guard Department of the Russian FSB said that no one suffered in the explosion; one woman got minor abrasions.
On May 25, 2013, at about 11:55 a.m. Moscow time, in the centre of Makhachkala, in Gamzatov Avenue, near the building of the Dagestani MIA, a female suicide bomber committed a terror act. The power of her IED made about 500 grams of TNT (trotyl) equivalent. The suicide bomber was identified as the 25-year-old Madina Alieva. She was the common-law wife of Aliev and Djapaev, two militants, who had been eliminated earlier. According to the Dagestani MIA, as a result of the explosion in Makhachkala, 15 persons were wounded, including five policemen. Later, a woman wounded by the explosion, died in hospital. According to the edition named "Life News", in total, 18 persons suffered from the explosion, seven of them are Dagestani policemen. Fifteen victims were hospitalized.
On May 20, 2013, two explosions occurred near the building of the court marshal service located in Ordzhonikidze Street in Makhachkala (Dagestan). Four persons were killed, and 52 persons were wounded. The first explosion occurred at about 3:15 p.m., and the second one when investigators arrived at the scene. The incident was classified as a terror act. About 40 victims are still in hospitals.
On May 17, 2013, in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya of the Sunzha District of Ingushetia, when law enforcers inspected one of the households, a suspected IAF member blew himself up with a grenade. He was wearing a suicide belt, said Djabrail Shaukhalov, the head of the press service of the Ingush MIA. According to the ICRF, seven law enforcers were wounded by the explosion. Later, it was announced that the suicide bombing was committed by Said-Khusein Atnazov, a resident of Chechnya, born in 1981. Akhmed Khashiev, the owner of the house, where Atnazov committed a suicide bombing, was detained; and a criminal case was instituted against him under the article of "organization of an IAF or involvement therein" of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
On May 1, 2013, at 12:20 a.m., an explosion occurred near the store "Interskol", located in Irchi Kazak Street not far from the Prosecutor's Office of the Lenin District of Makhachkala. Two persons were killed; and two others were wounded; their lives are out of danger. As a result of the explosion, two 10-year-old boys, the fourth-form pupils of the Makhachkala Lyceum No. 5 were fatally wounded. According to the NAC, the explosion at the store "Interskol" could be an attempt to intimidate the store owner. An eyewitness of the explosion said that earlier, another explosive device had been found near the store.
In the evening on April 12, 2013, in Buynaksk, an explosion occurred on the road near the school. As a result of the explosion, one person was killed, and three others were wounded. According to the updated information, all the victims are the policemen sent from Udmurtia and North Ossetia. The explosion was so powerful that it shattered windows of private houses located nearby and broke out a gate in one of them.
On April 8, 2013, in Lermontov Street in Buynaksk (Dagestan), a car belonging to a policeman from the patrol-and-post service (known as PPS) of the Buynaksk ROVD was blown up. Apart from the policeman, his wife and two children were in the car. The policeman was brought to hospital in grave condition; his wife and children, who got minor injuries, were sent home after medical care. The power of the bomb was about 400 grams of TNT equivalent.
On April 4, 2013, at about 8:00 a.m. Moscow time, a passenger car was blown up in a street of Buynaksk. A military man, who was in the car, a lieutenant of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was killed. The bomb was placed underneath his VAZ car.
On April 3, 2013, at 3:30 p.m., 12 kilometres off the village of Bamut of the Achkhoy-Martan District of Chechnya, a land mine detonated, killing one and wounding three persons. All the victims are members of regiment of off-the-state security unit of the Chechen MIA. Three survivors with wounds of varying severity were brought to hospital. A criminal case was instituted under Article 222 "Attempt on life of a law enforcer" and Part 1, Article 317 "Arms trafficking", of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
On February 15, 2013, in the village of Ekazhevo of the Nazran District of Ingushetia, an explosive device detonated under a car belonging to a local resident. As a result of the explosion, the driver and his passenger were wounded. The explosive device was supposedly planted underneath the car, which was severely damaged.
On February 14, 2013, at about 5:00 a.m., in Khasavyurt (Dagestan), a powerful explosion occurred at a checkpoint of the road-and-patrol service (known as DPS), when policemen inspected a Lada Priora car stopped by them. According to the ICRF, the driver triggered an explosive device with the power of 100-120 kg of TNT equivalent. As a result, three law enforcers – Ensign Sergey Solodyagin, Senior Sergeant Alexander Onkin and Senior Sergeant Denis Dmitriev – were killed. Six others were wounded, and one disappeared. Later, one of the wounded law enforcers died in hospital; and the body of the disappeared policeman was found. Thus, the number of victims reached 10 persons, including five casualties and five wounded policemen. The ICRF classified the incident as a terror act. The criminal, who had committed the terror act, was also killed. The explosion formed a crater with a diameter of 4 meters and depth of 1.5 meters. The building of the DPS checkpoint and service cars were damaged.
On February 12, 2013, an explosion occurred in Derbent. An improvised explosive device (IED) detonated underneath the car belonging to a former policeman. The owner of the car was heavily wounded.
