On December 19-25, armed conflict in Northern Caucasus took away six lives

At least six people were killed and one injured over the past week, on December 19-25, in the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus. These are the results of calculations of the "Caucasian Knot", based on its own materials and information from other public sources.

The casualties were three suspected militants in Karachay-Cherkessia and a suspect of involvement in illegal armed formations (IAFs) in Chechnya. Two suspects of such involvement perished in explosions triggered in Dagestan. A policeman from Karachay-Cherkessia was wounded.

Employees of law enforcement and other power agencies were attacked five times

Late at night on December 19, a group of unidentified attackers opened fire from three positions at the building of the village police station in Gubden, Karabudakhkent District of Dagestan. Nobody from the policemen, who opened fire in response, was hurt. No casualties among the attackers and civilians were reported. The building received minor damage.

At night on December 21, in the Zavodskoy District of Grozny, an unidentified group of militants opened automatic fire at the disposition of policemen from Karelia, sent to Chechnya on their mission. The assailants fled in a Zhiguli car. Nobody was injured among the power agents; however, they failed to detain the attackers.

On the same day, on December 21, in the village of Assinovskaya, Sunzha District, Chechen power agents shot dead a man, who, when policemen tried to search his Lada-Priora car, according to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), threw a grenade at them and fired several shots from his pistol; then, he tried to escape, but was killed by return fire. A PSM pistol and two grenades were found on the casualty. None of the policemen was hurt. The casualty has been identified as Akhmed Musaev, a 25-year-old resident of Ingushetia. The passenger of the Lada-Priora managed to escape from the scene of the incident.

On December 22 in Dagestan, in the village of Talgi, a private security detachment, which was guarding the ammunition depot, which is owned by the Company "Vzryvprom", in the outskirts of Makhachkala, was shelled. The guards opened returned fire, and the attackers fled. Nobody was hurt among the employees of private security agency.

On December 24 in Dagestan, a mobile police check-post stationed in the village of Karl Marx of the Kizlyar District of Dagestan was shelled without injuries.

Two explosions triggered and one prevented last week

An unsuccessful attempt of a terror act against policemen was undertaken in the village of Gubden, Karabudakhkent District of Dagestan. On December 19, at about 10:30 p.m. Moscow time, an unidentified man in a VAZ-21010 car tried to drive up to the Gubden village police station, when an explosion occurred inside the car. Apart from the driver, there were no more casualties. In the place of the incident, fragments of the explosive device, weapons, ammunition and a cellular phone were found. The power of the triggered bomb was about 5-6 kilos of TNT (trotyl) equivalent.

The investigation is considering several versions of the incident. According to the first one, the alleged gunman from the "Gubden Jamaat" was transporting an improvised explosive device (IED) to the destination, but failed to finalize his - a spontaneous detonation happened. A variant is not excluded that the driver could leave the car near the village police station in the hope that the policemen would pay attention to the car, which had been announced as hijacked, come up to it, and then he would just press the button on the remote control. A version is also considered of another attack of a suicide bomber in a car stuffed with explosive at a checkpoint, which failed for some reason.

In Makhachkala, on December 22, an explosion of an RG-42 grenade happened due to careless handling, which killed a 46-year-old resident of the city. The incident occurred at around 3:30 a.m. in an apartment on the top floor of the four-storey building in M. Yaragskiy Street. The blast broke the windows of the apartment. Metal fragments were taken from the place of the incident.

In the afternoon on December 24, employees of the Department of the FSB, acting jointly with the Kizlyar ROVD (District Interior Division), detected, in the highway "Kizlyar-Krainovka", 500 meters off the village of Karl Marx, Kizlyar District, a radio-controlled IED with the power of about 20 kilos of TNT equivalent. It was buried in the ground with wires driven out and consisted of a galvanized bucket filled with a mix of ammonium nitrate with aluminium powder, without striking elements. Sappers of the local FSB department blew up the bomb on the spot.

Special operation: three suspected IAF members killed, a policeman wounded

On December 19, in the course of a special operation conducted in the village of Uchkeken, Malokarachay District of Karachay-Cherkessia, three suspected members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) were killed. Later, they were identified as Islam Uzdenov, Murat Batchaev and Ruslan Kaitov, suspected of committing an armed attack on traffic police in the villages of Mirny and Uchkeken and involvement in the murder of three policemen. During the operation in Uchkeken, a special agent of the MIA of Karachay-Cherkessia was wounded and hospitalized in serious condition with a gunshot wound in his head.

Five persons detained as suspected IAF members: two in Stavropol Territory, two in Chechnya and one in Ingushetia

A 38-year-old resident of Ingushetia Magomed Gaitukiev was detained on suspicion of aiding the IAF members. It was established by the Republic's Department of the FSB that the detainee had used his personal car to transport military uniforms, medical supplies and foodstuffs for the militant groups operating in the Sunzha District. On December 19, a criminal case was opened against Gaitukiev under the Article of "aiding the participants of illegal armed formations (IAFs)" of the Russian Criminal Code.

On December 20, in the Predgorny District of the Stavropol Territory two persons were detained at the district police point, who, according to the ROVD, were accomplices of the IAF members, involved in armed attacks on policemen in the Stavropol Territory and Karachay-Cherkessia.

In Chechnya, the republic's law enforcement bodies detained two persons in Grozny, suspected of helping militants. Both confessed that from November on they provided help to IAF members by delivering camouflage uniforms to them. The detainees were a native of the village of Bamut, Achkhoi-Martan District, born in 1992, and a resident of the village of Assinovskaya, Sunzha District, born in 1986.