On January 12-18, at least three people fell victim to armed conflict in Northern Caucasus

During the week from January 12 to January 18, 2015, at least three persons perished in the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus; no information about wounded was reported. These are the results of the calculations run by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

All the casualties are suspects of involvement in the armed underground, one in Dagestan, KBR and Stavropol Territory each.

Attacks on law enforcers

On January 18, in the vicinity of the village of Verkhnestepnoe, Stepnovsky District of the Stavropol Territory, policemen reported that they tried to stop a car, driven by an unidentified man in the direction of the Kursk District. In response, the man opened automatic fire at the policemen from inside of his car; and was killed by return fire; none of the policemen was hurt. The casualty was identified by his relatives as Tamirlan Makhmutov, a resident of the Kayasul village, Neftekumsk District of the Stavropol Territory, who disappeared on January 17.

Special and counterterrorist operations

In the evening on January 14, at about 9:00 p.m. Moscow time, law enforcers blocked one of the houses in the centre of the village of Novoselskoe, Khasavyurt District of Dagestan. According to law enforcers, a suspected militant was hiding in the house. He responded to the demand to surrender by opening fire at law enforcers and was killed by return fire. He was pre-identified as Abdulnasir Ramazanov, a member of the "Khasavyurt" militant grouping. However, local residents reported about the death of two alleged members of the armed underground.

On January 18, at 7:00 a.m. Moscow time, in Nalchik, the territory of the gardening partnerships "Druzhba" and "Michurinets" was put under the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime. Power agents blocked a group of suspected militants in a summer cottage in the outskirt of Nalchik, who, according to law enforcers, opened fire on them. In the course of the assault that followed two suspected militants were killed, while nobody was hurt among special agents. Later, it was reported that one person – namely, the 21-year-old resident of Nalchik Alikhan Tochiev – was killed in the CTO, an explosive expert, who had taken part in the warfare in Syria. After the CTO, law enforcers found a laboratory for the production of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the cottage. The CTO regime in the above partnerships was lifted.

Attacks on civilians

In the morning on January 15, Aybike Saigidalieva, the widow of Magomedarip Magomedov, who was killed in August 2014, disappeared in the settlement of Shamkhal, Kirov District of Makhachkala. Prior to her disappearance, she managed to report that agents tried to detain her, for some unknown reasons, and deliver to Kizilyurt Inter-District Investigating Division of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF). In the evening on January 15, she returned home after questioning at the above Division.

Kidnappings

On January 10, Sultan Karasov, born in 1982, a native of the Nogai District of Karachay-Cherkessia, disappeared in Stavropol. On that day he was in Stavropol, where he had bought an apartment and was making repairs. He went to the gym and was back at 3:30 p.m.; then, at about 4:40 p.m., he was about to leave again. Not far from the gate of the yard of his house, his car was blocked. Sultan Karasov was put into another car and taken away. His relatives believe that he could be kidnapped by power agents, because on that very day, shortly before the incident, the securities of the house, where Sultan had bought his flat, let in a car, not belonging to any of the residents of the house, whose driver showed an ID of an FSB agent. This information arrived on January 17.