The terrorists put on shoulder straps

Militants carried out a new attack on security forces and claimed responsibility for explosions in the Moscow metro

Yesterday, 10 people were killed and about 40 injured as a result of a new terrorist attack launched yesterday morning in the Dagestan city of Kizlyar . As in the case of the March 29 explosions in the Moscow metro, the attack was carried out using suicide bombers. They became the 11th and 12th victims of the explosions. At about 9 o’clock in the morning, one of them first blew up a car filled with explosives in the center of Kizlyar, and half an hour later the second, dressed in a police uniform, blew himself up in the crowd of “security forces” gathered at the scene of the emergency.

And by the evening, the federal authorities received another purely demonstrative blow - a video message from the leader of the North Caucasus separatists, the so-called “amir of the Caucasus Emirate” Doku Umarov, was posted on one of the separatists’ Internet sites. Sitting in front of the camera against the background of green grass somewhere in the mountains, he, to the accompaniment of chirping birds, gave a lengthy speech in which he took responsibility for the terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro. According to Umarov, these terrorist attacks were the separatists’ response to the events of February 11-12 near the village of Arshty in Achkhoy-Martan, Chechnya, where several civilians were killed during a special operation by federal forces against militants. Then, while pursuing a group of militants, according to the official version, a group of wild garlic pickers came under fire, which, according to the federal forces, had nothing to do with the militants. It is noteworthy that then the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, personally decided to provide assistance to the relatives of the dead civilians, although he did not criticize the actions of the special services.

Whether the terrorist attacks in Moscow and Dagestan were a planned act of separatists, or whether they were carried out by different groups and simply coincided in time remains open to question. Umarov did not mention anything about the attack in Kizlyar, and his statement was dated March 29. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin only suggested that these were “links of the same chain.” Mr. Medvedev yesterday signed a decree on the creation of a comprehensive system for ensuring public safety in transport, which, according to the plan, will help in the future to prevent tragedies like the one that occurred in the Moscow metro, using specialized technical means and devices. Until now, humanity - at least according to open sources - has not yet been able to create any device that could a priori protect this or that place or building from terrorists. After all, the fight against terrorism, as well as, in general, against crime, by definition, can only be waged by people - law enforcement officers. Technical devices can only be auxiliary means. After all, terrorists, like murderers, bribe-takers, or ordinary thieves, do not have it written on their foreheads that they are such, and they do not have certificates or microchips with information about their intentions.

And one of the main ways to fight crime, and, first of all, terrorism, is operational work. That is, reconnaissance of the intentions of attackers by infiltrating agents, intercepting conversations, tracking the movements of suspects, etc. This, in fact, is the work of the special services.

However, paradoxically, in the current situation the authorities do not see any shortcomings or mistakes by the intelligence services. Just yesterday, one of the capital’s newspapers published an interview with the head of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, who said: “As far as I know, law enforcement agencies did everything in their power to ensure security.” Thus, it turned out that terrorist attacks are a necessary evil.

Explosions in Kizlyar occurred yesterday morning in the same place in the city center with an interval of 35 minutes. As the republican department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said, the first explosion occurred on Moskovskaya Street at 8.42 am, when a traffic police unit tried to stop a Niva car, which was heading towards the buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and gymnasium No. 1. When the police ordered the car driver to stop, the suicide bomber behind the wheel detonated an explosive device. As a result of the terrorist attack, two police officers and one bystander were killed.

20 minutes after the incident, an operational investigation team consisting of several dozen people arrived at the scene. When the police began to understand what had happened, a man dressed in the uniform of a senior police lieutenant approached the group and detonated an explosive device hidden on his body. As a result of the second explosion, 7 people were killed, among whom were seven police officers, including the head of the Kizlyar police department, Colonel Vitaly Vedernikov, and the head of the tax crimes department of the same department, Major Magomed Saidov. 37 people were injured in various ways. Among them are 13 civilians, two military personnel and 22 police officers. 17 people were transported by helicopter to hospitals in Makhachkala, another 9 were sent to a hospital in Kizlyar. The rest received medical assistance on the spot.

According to experts, the power of the first explosion was up to 200 kg in TNT equivalent - in its place there was a crater with a diameter of 5 and a depth of about 2 meters. According to the operatives, the suicide bomber was heading towards one of the buildings - the Ministry of Internal Affairs or the FSB, and only traffic police officers, at the cost of their lives, were able to prevent him.

The explosion was so strong that the shock wave broke glass within a radius of 800 meters. Almost all the windows in the gymnasium were broken, and the roof there partially collapsed. As city resident Tatyana Batsyna, who works near the scene of the tragedy, said, she was at work, about 800 meters from the site of the explosion, when she heard a loud bang and saw a cloud of smoke rising from the direction of the school-gymnasium, which, in her words, “ it looked like a ring, like a nuclear explosion.” About half an hour later there was another more muffled bang.

“Colleagues who came to work and live in the area of ​​the school said that a car parked in the area of ​​the school exploded; during the explosion, two more cars were passing by and were damaged. Just as a crowd of people gathered at the site of the explosion to see what happened and several ambulances arrived, another explosion was heard, Tatyana said. -- It's horrible. There are bodies lying on the street. The blast wave blew off the roof of the school, knocked out the windows, and large cracks appeared along the walls of the building.” The school will now only open on Monday. Also, as a result of the explosions, the main heating network and power line supports were damaged.

The identity of the bandit who drove the Niva has not yet been established - practically nothing remains of him, like the car. The identity of the second terrorist was established almost immediately - his head was found on the spot. He turned out to be local resident Daud Magomedov, born in 1988. According to a representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he was not on the wanted list, but was registered as an adherent of Wahhabism.

The explosions in Kizlyar occurred two days after the terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro, which killed 39 people and injured about 80. Then, let us recall, two female suicide bombers exploded in train cars at the Lubyanka and Park Kultury stations.

In connection with the terrorist attacks in Kizlyar, Prime Minister Putin instructed the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, to work on the issue of strengthening police units in the North Caucasus, and he immediately reported that he had ordered that vital support facilities in Dagestan be placed under enhanced security. “Terrorists want any target. “I ask you to pay attention to vital facilities, including cinemas, schools, colleges, universities,” Mr. Nurgaliev emphasized. -- It is also necessary to increase vigilance in the internal affairs bodies, executive and legislative authorities. In addition, the southern department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has been instructed to send the best employees to Kizlyar.” Vladimir Putin also stated that all victims and families of the victims will be provided assistance in the same amount as the victims of the Moscow terrorist attacks.

It is worth noting that the number of major terrorist attacks in Dagestan after yesterday’s emergency incidents has already exceeded the second dozen. The first explosion in the republic this year occurred in Makhachkala, when a suicide bomber in a bomb-laden Niva car tried to break into the territory of the traffic police base, where a train was being dismantled at that time. The special group officers, who were leaving for a mission in a UAZ vehicle at that time, blocked the terrorist’s path. As a result of a powerful explosion (from 50 to 70 kg in TNT equivalent), 5 policemen were killed and another 24 people were injured. In all other cases, there were mostly no casualties, but in several terrorist attacks, 5 police officers were wounded, and the head of the inter-district department for combating extremism, police lieutenant colonel Gapiz Isaev, was also killed.

Meanwhile, yesterday the first funerals of victims of terrorist attacks in the capital's metro took place in different cities of Russia. 20-year-old Maxim Mariev was buried in a cemetery in Chekhov near Moscow, 25-year-old Alexander Milyaev was buried in a cemetery in the Dzerzhinsky district of the Kaluga region. Also on Wednesday, the body of 43-year-old Viktor Genkut was sent to Sevastopol. The funeral of Muscovites should begin in the capital today. As the State Unitary Enterprise “Ritual” said, on Thursday it is planned to bury seven victims: two people at the Khovanskoye cemetery, two at Kotlyakovskoye, two at Vostryakovskoye and one more victim of the terrorist attacks at the Dolgoprudnenskoye cemetery.

Sergey MINENKO, Victor PAUKOV