Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Eight killed in Russia during clashes in the North Caucasus

In just two days, eight people have died in the North Caucasus, Russia, in the area of Dagestan. At dawn on Tuesday, two policemen were killed in an Islamist guerrilla attack against a motorized column near the town police Eich, Tsuma in the region, according to a Russian Interior spokesman told Interfax.

According to this source, gurrilleros have detonated a roadside bomb a convoy of six police vehicles. Officers responded to the attack by opening fire and wounding three rebels succeeded. According to Interior Ministry spokesman, "has launched a search operation" and has been ordered to step up precautionary measures during the movement of the security forces.

This attack comes just hours after three policemen and three suspected Islamist militants were killed Monday during a clash in the same region. A decade after the Russian federal forces the power to cast out Chechen separatists, an almost daily violence invades the North Caucasus, mostly Muslim, where the rebels want to establish a strict Islamic state under Sharia law.

"The police returned fire at a group of militants, killing two of them," said the spokesman of the National Anti Terrorist Sintsov Nikolai. He added that the clashes taking place in the region of Dagestan. He also said that "At least three policemen were killed in the village of Kider near Dagestan, on the western border with Chechnya.

This area is an established multi-ethnic republic along the Caspian Sea, the heart of the insurgency. Another rebel died in the small region of Ingushetia, according to the Interfax agency, citing police. This past weekend, also in Dagestan, an imam was shot dead at his home and former rebels looted arms from a museum, according to local media.

Some political analysts say the auropuesto suicide bomb attack in Moscow last January, which killed 37 people, is proof that the Kremlin is failing in containing the insurgency in the North Caucasus. On Friday, the rebel leader Doku Umarov, suggested that seeks to organize more attacks.

The region's proximity to the city of Sochi on the Black Sea will take place where the Winter Olympics in 2014, is a concern for the Russian government, which has pledged to increase security.

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