In the course of the week of January 16-22 at least 11 persons fell victim to armed conflict in Northern Caucasus

At least eight humans were lost and three others wounded over the past week, that is, on January 16-22, in the armed conflict in Northern Caucasus. These are the results of calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" based on its own materials and information from other open sources.

The death toll includes six alleged members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) and two civilians. All of them were lost in Dagestan. Three policemen were wounded - two in Dagestan and one in Kabardino-Balkaria.

Six persons - three in Chechnya, two in Dagestan and one in Kabardino-Balkaria - were detained on suspicion of involvement in IAFs and illegal possession of weapons.

One should understand that the above statistics cannot reflect with absolute accuracy the number of victims in each of the identified categories of the survey. Not all the data gets into news reports. It is not always possible to verify the reliability of statements made by law enforcement bodies.

Attacks on law enforcers

In Dagestan, near the village of Novokhusheta, a police car was shelled; nobody was harmed. Unidentified attackers opened automatic fire at the service UAZ van with the acting head of the territorial police division inside. Both policemen - the lieutenant and his driver - managed to jump out on the running car; then, the car fell into the canal. The attackers managed to disappear.

In Baksan, an employee of the criminal search department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for Kabardino-Balkaria was attacked by two unknown persons and injured. The incident happened in Shukov Street, when the law enforcer was driving home. His VAZ-2114 car was shelled; and the policeman was hospitalized; his health condition is stable.

Explosions and terror acts

A police patrol car was blown up in Derbent; one policeman was injured. The bomb went up under a police UAZ van parked near the building of the ROVD (District Interior Division); the car belonged to the city police department.

On January 17, a stun grenade "Zarya" got triggered inside a service UAZ of the Russian MIA for the city of Derbent. A policeman was wounded. The incident occurred at intersection of Stalskiy and Kandelaki Streets. The police ensign who was in the car at the moment was wounded and brought to the city hospital.

A car explosion occurred in the Dagestani city of Izberbash killing three persons. The incident happened at about 5:40 a.m. Moscow time, after the passenger car turned off the Federal Highway "Kavkaz" and drove towards Izberbash. When the car was 700 meters away from the city border, an explosion occurred. The version is not excluded that the car was transporting some explosive device, which occasionally went up. The casualties were identified as Musaev brothers and Gadji Gadjiev - residents of Kaspiysk.

Special operations

In the course of an armed clash near the village of Toturbiykala, Khasavyurt District of Dagestan, law enforcers liquidated three alleged IAF members, who were on the federal search list. The militants were found in a wooded area; at detention they rendered armed resistance to policemen and were killed in the shooting.

Two of them were provisionally identified as the 25-year-old twins Sabit and Said Akaev. According to power agents, in June 2011, the Akaevs went to the forest and become active members of the armed underground. "They were engaged in burning shops, extorting money from entrepreneurs, and were involved in the murders of Akhmed Osmanov, the assistant imam of the village of Aksai, Khasavyurt District, on November 14, 2011, and of a policeman from the mobile squad of the special company of the Khasavyurt ROVD on October 14, 2011," the Russian National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC) has explained.

The third casualty was identified on January 21 as Ilyas Kakaev, born in 1989, a resident of the village of Bammatyurt, Khasavyurt District. According to the MIA of Dagestan, he was a member of the bandit grouping under command of Arslan Mamedov, a resident of the village of Bairamaul, also known as "Muaz", who is on the federal search list under Article 105 (murder) of the Russian Criminal Code. This was reported by the official website of the MIA.

As reported by Aliaskhab Magomedov, the head of the village of Gimry, Untsukul District of Dagestan, on January 17 the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime was cancelled in this village. Special machinery left the village; however, the special operation continues; its final date is unknown yet. MIA officials say that they are looking for distributors of the so-called "flash sticks" - messages with a demand to pay for the needs of the jihad.

From January 17 on, the Russian MIA and FSB for Chechnya and Ingushetia launched a joint special operation aimed to search for IAF members in the mountain woodlands of Sunzha Districts of both republics. The operation involved internal troops and FSB and MIA units of Chechnya and Ingushetia. On January 19, the special operation against IAF members in Sunzha Districts of Ingushetia and Chechnya was over - no militants were found. Chechen power agents do not rule out that the reason for the failure could be a data leakage - militants managed to leave the search area well in advance.

Detentions

A suspected militants' helper was detained in the Vedeno District of Chechnya. In the course of the check of operative information in the village of Dargo, employees of the local ROVD detained one of the villagers. When questioned, the detainee confessed that for several months of 2004 he provided members of a local IAF with foodstuffs.

Another suspected helper to IAF members was detained in the outskirts of the village of Samashki, Achkhoi-Martan District of Chechnya. A 21-year-old local confessed that since September 2008 and to date he has been helping members of a local IAF, and showed a hiding place with foodstuffs, which he had made in the southern outskirts of the village.

In the Grozny District of Chechnya, policemen detained a local resident suspected of helping IAF members. As reported by the local MIA, from December 2011 he rendered help to members of a militants' grouping in the Achkhoi-Martan District. The showed a cache with foodstuffs intended for the militants, which he made in a wooded area between the villages of Zakan-Yurt and Samashki.

In Kabardino-Balkaria, the police found and confiscated a Kalashnikov magazine and 44 rounds for it from a local resident. In Nalchik, power agents detained a citizen, who had been convicted more than once under the article of "making and possessing weapons" and other articles of the Russian Criminal Code. A charged Kalashnikov filled with 30 cartridges and a paper bag with 14 rounds of ammunition for a 5.45-mm AK-74 submachine gun were confiscated from him.

Policemen found two grenades, six rounds of ammunition and a revolver gun on two residents of Dagestan. On January 17, a home-made revolver gun with six 5.6-mm rounds was confiscated from a 33-year-old resident of Kizilyurt. Besides, two RGD-5 grenades (a distance-triggered hand grenade) with fuses, a remote control from a car alarm system and wires were confiscated from a 24-year-old resident of Derbent.

Disappearances

In Dagestan, Magomed Magomedov, a resident of Makhachkala, born in 1988, disappeared: on January 20, the young man left home for work, but never appeared at his workplace.

Killings of civilians

In Makhachkala, on January 20, Umar Sagidmagomedov, a lawyer of the City Bar Association "Kavkaz", and Rasul Kurbanov, a brother of Jamila Kurbanova, a journalist of the news programme at the RGVK (Republic's State Broadcasting Company) "Dagestan", were shot dead. Relatives of Sagidmagomedov associated his murder with his professional activities.

The "Caucasian Knot" emphasizes that the statistics of members of the armed underground deals with those declared as such by law enforcement bodies.