Dagestan: Minister Escapes Assassination Attempt
Officials blame militant “revenge” for attack, human rights activists cite police abuses.
Dagestan: Minister Escapes Assassination Attempt
Officials blame militant “revenge” for attack, human rights activists cite police abuses.
On the evening of February 3, the duty officer in Dagestan’s interior ministry got an emergency call with the news of the murder of a police officer. Twenty-seven-year-old Maksud Magomedov was killed when his vehicle was fired on by automatic weapons.
The local interior minister, Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, generally visits the scene, when any of his subordinates is killed and on this occasion the dead man was also the son of a friend.
When the minister was just 300 metres from the site, there were two powerful explosions. The car carrying the minister’s bodyguards was blown up. Police major Magomed Osmanov died on the scene and driver Alexei Zhdanov died later in hospital.
Magomedtagirov himself had decided not to wait for his official car and had gone with his brother in his brother’s vehicle, which saved him.
A search operation conducted by armoured vehicles and helicopters failed to locate those responsible.
The secretary of Dagestan’s security council, Akhmed-Nabi Magdihajiev announced just two days before the assassination attempt that in 2006 the official security services had “managed to stem the tide of extremism and terrorism in Dagestan” and the attack is being interpreted by some as a direct challenge by militant groups.
Magdihajiev, said that in 2006 the number of “terrorist acts” had declined by two and a half times and those on law enforcement officers had halved.
Since 2003, 35 policemen have been killed and 47 wounded in Dagestan.
The minister, who has headed the interior ministry in the turbulent North Caucasian region since 1998, had also been targeted in an assassination attempt in August last year shortly after the prosecutor of the city of Buinaksk, Bitar Bitarov, was killed by a bomb. Two of the minister’s guards were killed and he himself suffered concussion.
In a press conference after the incident, Magomedtagirov said that he saw the attack as a direct attempt to intimidate both himself and the president of Dagestan, Mukhu Aliev, who took office in February 2006.
“Not everyone likes what the law enforcement organs of the republic are doing,” he said. “Many people don’t like the forceful work of the first president of Dagestan and the decisions he is making that are supported by the interior ministry.
“The law enforcement organs should do everything in their power to impose order and fight corruption and that includes inside the power structures.”
The minister has stepped up the number of operations against Islamic militants in the last few months. He is a prominent hate figure on extremist Islamist websites.
Ali Temirbekov, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, told IWPR that the most likely motive for the attack was “revenge of illegal armed bandit groups for the interruption of their activity”.
Vyacheslav Izmailov, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who specialises in the North Caucasus, agreed, calling the attack an act of “ordinary revenge for special operations carried out in Dagestan”.
However, human rights activists warn that revenge for police brutality is also a likely motive for the attacks.
“Since Magomedtagirov took up the job of interior minister many illegal and immoral methods of investigation and interrogation have been used,” said Isalmagomed Nabiev, an expert with the organisation For Human Rights. “Under torture people have confessed to crimes which they had nothing to do with. And as we know evil begets evil.”
Nabiev cited a recent rally in Makhachkala by relatives of Nadir Magomedov, who died in a police detention cell. The protesters accused the minister of covering up the murder of their loved one. No criminal case has been opened for the death and there has been no court verdict on the cause. Officials have not given an explanation for his death.
Another rally in late December protesting against police injustice was broken up by police. The protesters complained that a young man named Umar Ibnukhajirov had been abducted by masked armed men, whom they believed were acting on the orders of the police. Ibnukhajirov is still in detention in Makhachkala.
Other observers say the assassination attempt may be linked to an internal power struggle in Dagestan.
“Magomedtagirov may have crossed one of the ruling clans of the republic,” said a security officer, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Parliamentary elections are due to take place in Dagestan on March 11 and the president has said more than once that he is relying on the interior ministry to keep order in the republic.
Diana Alieva is a correspondent for Svobodnaya Respublika newspaper in Dagestan.
The local interior minister, Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, generally visits the scene, when any of his subordinates is killed and on this occasion the dead man was also the son of a friend.
When the minister was just 300 metres from the site, there were two powerful explosions. The car carrying the minister’s bodyguards was blown up. Police major Magomed Osmanov died on the scene and driver Alexei Zhdanov died later in hospital.
Magomedtagirov himself had decided not to wait for his official car and had gone with his brother in his brother’s vehicle, which saved him.
A search operation conducted by armoured vehicles and helicopters failed to locate those responsible.
The secretary of Dagestan’s security council, Akhmed-Nabi Magdihajiev announced just two days before the assassination attempt that in 2006 the official security services had “managed to stem the tide of extremism and terrorism in Dagestan” and the attack is being interpreted by some as a direct challenge by militant groups.
Magdihajiev, said that in 2006 the number of “terrorist acts” had declined by two and a half times and those on law enforcement officers had halved.
Since 2003, 35 policemen have been killed and 47 wounded in Dagestan.
The minister, who has headed the interior ministry in the turbulent North Caucasian region since 1998, had also been targeted in an assassination attempt in August last year shortly after the prosecutor of the city of Buinaksk, Bitar Bitarov, was killed by a bomb. Two of the minister’s guards were killed and he himself suffered concussion.
In a press conference after the incident, Magomedtagirov said that he saw the attack as a direct attempt to intimidate both himself and the president of Dagestan, Mukhu Aliev, who took office in February 2006.
“Not everyone likes what the law enforcement organs of the republic are doing,” he said. “Many people don’t like the forceful work of the first president of Dagestan and the decisions he is making that are supported by the interior ministry.
“The law enforcement organs should do everything in their power to impose order and fight corruption and that includes inside the power structures.”
The minister has stepped up the number of operations against Islamic militants in the last few months. He is a prominent hate figure on extremist Islamist websites.
Ali Temirbekov, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, told IWPR that the most likely motive for the attack was “revenge of illegal armed bandit groups for the interruption of their activity”.
Vyacheslav Izmailov, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who specialises in the North Caucasus, agreed, calling the attack an act of “ordinary revenge for special operations carried out in Dagestan”.
However, human rights activists warn that revenge for police brutality is also a likely motive for the attacks.
“Since Magomedtagirov took up the job of interior minister many illegal and immoral methods of investigation and interrogation have been used,” said Isalmagomed Nabiev, an expert with the organisation For Human Rights. “Under torture people have confessed to crimes which they had nothing to do with. And as we know evil begets evil.”
Nabiev cited a recent rally in Makhachkala by relatives of Nadir Magomedov, who died in a police detention cell. The protesters accused the minister of covering up the murder of their loved one. No criminal case has been opened for the death and there has been no court verdict on the cause. Officials have not given an explanation for his death.
Another rally in late December protesting against police injustice was broken up by police. The protesters complained that a young man named Umar Ibnukhajirov had been abducted by masked armed men, whom they believed were acting on the orders of the police. Ibnukhajirov is still in detention in Makhachkala.
Other observers say the assassination attempt may be linked to an internal power struggle in Dagestan.
“Magomedtagirov may have crossed one of the ruling clans of the republic,” said a security officer, who preferred to remain anonymous.
Parliamentary elections are due to take place in Dagestan on March 11 and the president has said more than once that he is relying on the interior ministry to keep order in the republic.
Diana Alieva is a correspondent for Svobodnaya Respublika newspaper in Dagestan.
