Charging before death

The hunt for police officers continues in Dagestan

In the Dagestan city of Kizilyurt today they will say goodbye to four employees of the private security department (OVO), who became victims of the most daring separatist terrorist attack since the beginning of the year. On Wednesday morning, militants blew up policemen who came to the school stadium for physical training. Investigators are confident that the terrorists carefully planned the sabotage, since the bomb exploded when city department employees were most vulnerable - they were changing clothes and warming up. Employees of the republican special services immediately assumed that the action against the police was planned by one of the last surviving leaders of the Caucasian separatists, Rappani Khalilov (nickname Rabbani). In addition, they stated with regret that in the near future they only expect an increase in the activity of the militants subordinate to him.

According to the Kizilyurt City Department of Internal Affairs, the bomb went off at 7.35 on the sports ground of school No. 7. Every Wednesday, employees of the Kizilyurt city police department conduct physical training classes there. At 7.45 the police line up for roll call. Exactly at eight the jogging begins. According to the local FSB, every city resident knows about this schedule. Terrorists also took advantage of military punctuality.

The explosion occurred near the benches in the southern part of the stadium, where police officers traditionally change into sports uniforms. On Wednesday, 40 police officers came to drill, most of whom were employees of the OVO. Seven of the wounded were hospitalized at the Central City Hospital - five received shrapnel wounds, two were shell-shocked, and were thrown four meters from the epicenter of the explosion. Doctors assess the condition of one of the victims as very serious.

Experts established that a 76-mm artillery shell equipped with a radio fuse was planted on the sports ground. The explosion created a shallow crater, and explosives experts suggested that, most likely, the mine was only slightly buried.

After experts determined that the attackers were most likely in the immediate vicinity of the school at the time of the explosion, operatives checked the surrounding areas. But the search did not bring results.

Members of the joint investigation team worked at the scene of the emergency until late in the evening. Investigators did not talk about specific suspects, but they immediately confidently named Rappani Khalilov, the most odious of the surviving field commanders, as the mastermind of the terrorist attack. According to Russian intelligence services, he is responsible for more than 50 terrorist attacks against Dagestani security forces and civilians. The loudest of them was an explosion during a festive parade in the city of Kaspiysk on May 9, 2002, which killed 45 people, including 17 children, and injured about 100. At the beginning of the summer, intelligence officers learned that Rabbani received about half a million dollars from foreign sponsors to carry out new terrorist attacks. In Dagestan and Chechnya they said then that they knew the place where Khalilov was supposedly hiding. A large-scale special operation was carried out in both republics, in which more than 5 thousand military and police officers were involved. Nevertheless, it was not possible to detain or destroy Rabbani.

Tatiana GRITSENKO