In 2010, out of 21 terror acts in North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), 15 were committed by suicide bombers

Military actions in Northern Caucasus move more and more from Chechnya and Ingushetia to other republics of the South of Russia. There are no grounds to speak about aggravation of the situation in Northern Caucasus in general, since Chechnya and Ingushetia demonstrate positive dynamics in the count of military incidents, while in 2010 the situation in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria became much worse.

In 2010, the count of terror acts, casualties and victims in Northern Caucasus went up – in total, 238 explosions and 15 terror acts with participation of suicide bombers were committed, that is, by 9 explosions and 1 terror act more than in 2009. In 2009, there were 92 casualties and 332 victims; in 2010 – 151 persons perished and 656 persons were wounded.

In Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan, the count of explosions went up rapidly – by 242% in Kabardino-Balkaria and by 63% in Dagestan, while Chechnya and Ingushetia saw an essential reduction of the count of such incidents – by 37% and 54% accordingly.

These are the totals of calculations made by the "Caucasian Knot" and based on own data and information from open sources. In our calculations we counted all the explosions of specially made explosion devices, either self-made or of military origin, planted at industrial or civil objects, self-explosions of suicide bombers, including the cases, when only the suicide bomber perished.

In Kabardino-Balkaria, which became in 2010 a new focus of tension in Northern Caucasus, in 2010 there were 41 explosion and 1 terror act with participation of a suicide bomber; the count of explosions more than tripled the figure for 2009, when the republic reported about 12 explosions. In 2009, Kabardino-Balkaria saw no terror acts and suicide bombers at all.

In Dagestanthe count of explosions in 2010 was also higher than in 2009 – 112 in 2010 and 69 in 2009. The number of suicide bombers went up six-fold – from 1 in 2009 up to 6 in 2010. Dagestan saw most terror acts with suicide bombers among all the regions of the NCFD.

In Ingushetia, as compared with 2009, more than twofold decrease in the number of explosions was fixed – from 86 in 2009 down to 40 in 2010, and a twofold decrease of terror acts with participation of suicide bombers – from 4 in 2009 down to 2 in 2010.

Decrease of the number of explosions and terror acts was also registered in Chechnya. The number of explosions here went down here from 62 in 2009 to 39 in 2010, while the count of terror acts with suicide bombers more than halved – from 9 in 2009 down to 4 in 2010.

Let us note here that the decrease in the number of terror acts and explosions in Ingushetia coincided in time with the death and detention of militants' leaders – respectively, of Alexander Tikhomirov, also known as Said Buryatskiy, and Magomed (Akhmed) Evloev, also known as Magas. Note that Said Buryatskiy was one of the ideologists of training suicide bombers, while Magas was a key figure of the military command of "Imarat Kavkaz".

Besides, last year Ingushetia saw major reshufflings in top command of power structures: on March 16, 2010, a new head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was appointed – Victor Pogolov. Besides, on February 16, 2010, a professional military Yuri Mityuk was appointed to the position of the head of the Administration of President Ingushetia.

Terror acts and explosions in the territory of Northern Caucasus in 2010

[1] We counted all the explosions of specially made explosion devices, either self-made or military ones, specially planted at military, industrial or civil objects (railroad, electric transmission lines, and oil and gas pipelines).

[2] We counted self-explosions and prevented terror acts, where only the suicide bomber was the casualty. As a "terror act" in this case we take the article of the Criminal Code: "Commission of an explosion, arson or other actions intimidating the population and creating a threat of human death, loss of essential property damage or other grave consequences with the aim to affect decision-making by authorities or international organizations, as well as a threat of committing the above actions with the same aims"; Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of June 13, 1996, No. 63-FZ (wording of 07.04.2010, as of 15.04.2010).

[3] We counted also suicide bombers and perished and wounded employees of power agencies.

In 15 terror acts of this category, 23 suicide bombers blew themselves up.

* Within the united terror acts, we counted the self-explosions of two suicide bombers in Dagestan on January 6, and of 7 and 3 suicide bombers in Chechnya on August 29 and October 19 accordingly.

Note of the Editorial Board: see also the news items: "Special services do not rule out that murders of tourists in Kabardino-Balkaria were hunting for daughter of ex-head of the FSB", "In 2010, 7 tourists perished in 4 attacks in Northern Caucasus", "Ingushetia creates fund to help victims of terror acts", "Suicide bombers killed in Grozny prepared major terror acts on Mohammed's birthday, power agents assert", "12 persons perished during week in arm conflict in Northern Caucasus".