Stavropol residents treat special operation held in their city as exceptional

The special operation was held in a quiet area near the city centre and became a surprise, reported interviewed experts and residents of Stavropol. City residents noted that the counterterrorist operation (CTO) legal regime did not provoked them to fear.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that at night on December 9, the counterterrorist operation (CTO) legal regime was introduced in the centre of Stavropol. Officers of the FSB department for the Stavropol Region have reported the special operation was carried out to prevent a terror act. According to the law enforcement bodies, three militants were killed during the special operation. The killed suspects were identified as natives of Chechnya, Dagestan and the Stavropol Territory.

Law enforcers urged local residents to leave their houses, and then a shootout began and an explosion occurred, reported a woman from Stavropol.

Vasily Balditsyn, the leader of the Stavropol Union of Journalists, it is too early to talk about an alleged organized unit of a terrorist organization, for example, the "Islamic State" (IS, banned in Russia). He has also noted the incident was not typical for Stavropol.

Valery Ledovskoy, the coordinator of the Centre for Civil Initiatives of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), has added that although in Stavropol, a significant part of the population professes Islam; there are no mosques in the city.

He has also expressed the opinion that given the presence of explosives, the incident might be organized by members of a IS unit.

Despite the fact that, according to the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC), the militants were plotting a terror act to be committed during the New Year holidays, the incident did not affect the people's plans to attend mass festivities, local residents stated.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.