Translated material
Terrorist Key
The trace of the organizers of the explosion in Vladikavkaz was lost in the cemetery
The number of victims of the terrorist attack in Vladikavkaz, where on September 9 a car filled with explosives was blown up at the entrance to the central market, has increased to 17 people. The number of victims is growing every day - by yesterday evening 173 people were already recognized as such, while on the day of the tragedy there were 130 wounded. Meanwhile, while the investigation into the terrorist attack in North Ossetia is underway, militants carried out several more acts of sabotage in the North Caucasus. In particular, in Dagestan, separatists killed four police officers, including the head of the department for combating extremism of the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs. In Derbent, during another special operation, a militant was killed, whom investigators identified as the son of the head of the local criminal investigation department.The terrorist attack in Vladikavkaz took place on Thursday at the main entrance to the city's central market at about 11.30 am. The bomb was planted in a Volga parked at the gate. The power of the bomb was about 50 kg of TNT: all the windows in the surrounding houses were broken, and cars parked around were torn apart. Later, in the driver's seat of the Volga, of which practically nothing remained, investigators found the headless body of a man, whom investigators considered to be a suicide bomber.
As a result of the terrorist attack, 17 people died, 15 of whom died on the spot, and two more a little later in the hospital. The number of victims has already reached 173 - in recent days, almost 40 people turned to doctors for help, most of whom left the scene of the emergency in shock. About 150 victims remained in hospitals yesterday, 12 of whom are in extremely serious condition.
As it turned out, there could have been much more victims if the terrorist had been able to get into the market, but security prevented him here. According to the law enforcement agencies of North Ossetia, at the entrance to the market, security guard Aslan Pliev stopped the Volga and demanded that the driver open the trunk. The driver defiantly tried to do this, but was unable to do so, explaining that his key was supposedly broken (experts later established that the key had been broken in advance). The security guard, however, did not let him into the market.
“When my partner approached the car, the car window was slightly open, and the guy who was there said that he needed to buy groceries, but we didn’t let him through because he didn’t open the trunk. Within a couple of minutes there was an explosion,” said Pliev’s partner Valery Dzagkoev. According to him, the guards paid the closest attention to the Volga, since they “are familiar with all the cars that bring goods to the market.” As Mr. Dzagkoev said, when the alleged suicide bomber, who looked to be about 20 years old, got out of the car, he seemed quite calm: “He was not nervous. Was adequate. He went to the trunk, then got behind the wheel and drove off.”
It also turned out that on the same day, a little earlier, the police also tried to inspect this car. 40 minutes before the Volga arrived at the market, it was stopped at the Chermensky Circle checkpoint on the border of Ingushetia and North Ossetia. There, the police checked the driver's license, but did not detain him, despite the fact that he also could not show them the contents of the trunk. Now the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office is conducting an investigation into these employees. The investigation suspects that the police were negligent by not inspecting the car properly.
It was previously reported that the identity of the suicide bomber had been established, however, according to the latest data, discrepancies were found in the documents he presented. According to some reports, to the former owner of the Volga, Ismail Dobriev from Ingushetia, who sold it only the day before the explosion, the buyer introduced himself as Akhsib, and asked for a handwritten power of attorney for the right to drive the vehicle in the name of A.A. Archakova. At the same time, at the police post, the driver, along with a power of attorney, presented a driver’s license in the name of Magomed Israilovich Archakov.
According to the investigation, Magomed Archakov, born in 1982, lived in the North Ossetian village of Mayskoye, and then moved with his family to Ingushetia. It turned out that he was even included in the police records, but not as an accomplice of militants, but in a drug trafficking case. When the detectives arrived at the Archakov family, it turned out that Magomed could not drive the car that day - earlier this year, while working at an electrical substation, he died from an electric shock.
On Saturday, about 100 local residents gathered for a rally on Freedom Square near the Government House in Vladikavkaz, who demanded a meeting with the leadership. The protesters called on the authorities to restore order, strengthen security measures against terrorism, and also name the people involved in the terrorist attack.
Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of North Ossetia Soslan Sikoev came out to the participants of the action. “I personally talked to them and explained that work was underway,” he said. - The best investigators, specialists, experts in Russia are working on this. This is a threat not only to North Ossetia, but to the entire North Caucasus District.”
Commenting on the protesters’ demand to punish the officers who allowed the car with explosives through from Ingushetia, the deputy minister replied: “Police officers have no right to close any border - that’s the first thing. And secondly, as the initial investigative actions showed, the police officers conscientiously searched the car, as evidenced by the materials recorded on the video surveillance monitors. I will say more: according to the original version, the explosives were in the tank of the car. Thus, no policeman could identify explosives in the trunk by eye.”
Meanwhile, over the weekend, militants staged a new series of sabotage in the North Caucasus. Yesterday in Dagestan, the head of the 1st interregional department for combating extremism of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the North Caucasus Federal District, Lieutenant Colonel Gapal Gadzhiev, was killed. As reported by the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs, the attack on him was carried out at about 11.20 in Makhachkala, when the officer was driving to work. At the intersection next to his Toyota Avensis, a Zhiguli stopped, from where the militants opened fire on the foreign car. As a result, Mr. Gadzhiev died on the spot. And a day earlier, in the same Makhachkala, unknown persons blew up the car of an investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic. A police officer was wounded.
On Saturday, during a special operation, three policemen were killed in the Dagestan village of Nizhnie Mahargi-Makhi. Operatives blocked four terrorists in one of the residential buildings, but they put up fierce resistance. In the shootout, all the bandits were killed. On the same day, another special operation took place in Dagestan's Derbent, where police blocked three militants in an apartment in a 12-story building. One of them was killed - he turned out to be the 26-year-old son of the head of the local criminal investigation department, Arsen Akhmedov, who had been missing since June. Nothing has been reported about the fate of the remaining militants.
Yesterday, security forces carried out another special operation in the Kirov district of Makhachkala, where, according to local residents, a group of militants was discovered in one of the houses at about 15.30. FSB and MIA officers blocked the house, and in the ensuing battle, eight separatists were killed, including one woman.