Attack on law enforcers in Dagestan becomes sixth incident since early 2018

An attack which took place in the Khasavyurt District on August 29 and as a result of which policemen were wounded became the sixth attack on law enforcers in Dagestan since early 2018 and the first incident in the region.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that at about 11:00 a.m. Moscow time on August 29, in the village of Toturbiykala in the Khasavyurt District, an unidentified man opened fire on policemen after they requested him to produce his ID. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for Dagestan, two wounded policemen are hospitalized, and the search for the attacker is underway.

The above attack on the policemen became the second in the republic for the past 1.5 months. The previous armed incident took place in the evening on July 20, when a car of the road-and-patrol service (known as DPS) was shelled on the "Kavkaz" road in the Kizilyurt District, and the attackers fled. There were three policemen in the DPS car. Two of them were killed, and the third was wounded. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS) banned in Russia by the court.

Earlier, since early 2018, four more armed clashes with law enforcers had been registered in Dagestan. Thus, on April 24, in the forest area between the villages of Chinar and Gedjukh in the Derbent District, law enforcers discovered a dugout and shot dead two armed men during a shootout. On April 21, according to the National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC), in the same area, in the course of a counterterrorist operation (CTO), nine suspected militants were killed and one special forcers fighter was wounded.

On February 15, according to the information of the NAC, in the course of a shootout with law enforcers in the Untsukul District, where the CTO legal regime was introduced, a militant was killed, later identified as the leader of the "Kharachi" grouping. Later, it became known that during the special operation, a law enforcer was killed and some persons were wounded.

This year, the first attack on law enforcers took place at night on January 15 in the city of Kaspiysk, where a man opened fire in response to the policemen's demand to produce his ID and was killed by return fire.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 30, 2018 at 06:08 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.