Silent Shakhidka in North Ossetia
// Ethnically motivated terrorist act in Vladikavkaz
Ten people were killed and 40 wounded in a terrorist act yesterday near Central Market in Vladikavkaz, capital of North Ossetia, when a female suicide bomber detonated the explosives attached to her body. Investigators are examining the possibility that the act was planned in neighboring Ingushetia. Police in both republics are on alert.
The blast occurred at 2:30 p.m. near a minivan taxi. “It was the stop near the Globus Pavilion [of Central Market]. It is one of the first stops, so the taxi driven by Zaurbek pulled up empty,” route supervisor Kazbek Cherdzhiev told Kommersant. “At the stop, as Zaurbek told us later, there were many people, mainly students from nearby North Ossetia State University. A young woman with dark, fluffy hair stood among them. The explosion went off as she was approaching the taxi door.” The powerful blast literally blew up the taxi and its roof flew off, Cherzhdiev said. “Everyone standing near the woman died,” he continued. “People were either blown apart or were killed by the blast or were killed by the nuts, screws and ball bearings packed into the bomb. Only the head and part of the feet of the terrorist remained.” Zaurbek, the driver, was miraculous spared, his supervisor said, after the projectiles lodged themselves in his high seatback. The shock wave from the blast pushed him forward and he hit his forehead on the windshield. The last thing Zaurbek say at the stop was the mangled bodies of his would-be passengers. He was hospitalized with a severe concussion. Recalling the terrorist act, he said that all he remembers clearly is a flash in the spot where a passenger had been. He says the bomber did not shout anything. She silently walked forward and blew herself up.
At the moment the ambulances and investigators arrived at the scene, there were eight bodies and two people with severe wounds, who were immediately taken to the hospital. They did not survive, however. A total of 40 people received medical treatment, according to North Ossetian Health Minister Vladimir Legkoev. Chief physician of the republican hospital Boris Digurov added that 11 of them remain hospitalized, two of whom are in extremely critical condition. North Ossetian President Taimuraz Mamsurov has declared a day of mourning.
The scene of the act was cordoned off and divided into squares as explosives experts and forensics investigators began their work. The blast had the force of 300-500 grams of TNT equivalent, experts say.
Hundreds of people gathered around the barrier, but special forces kept everyone except police and journalists at a distance. Cellular connections in Vladikavkaz failed at times as people throughout the city called their friends and loved ones. Several women, who apparently could not reach their loved ones by phone, were crying and trying to force their way through to the crime scene, but the special forces were having none of it.
At the scene, behind police tape, investigators worked at some distance from each other and the ground grew white from small pieces of numbered paper that marked the spot where there was a shred of human remains. The head of the presumed terrorist lie near the door of the taxi. Her face was greatly disfigured but, experts said, still usable for identification. The moment of the terrorist act was caught on video tape from a camera installed at the market.
Chermen Zangiev, aide to the head of the investigative department of the investigative committee of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office for North Ossetia, the investigation is being carried as a criminal case under article 105 (“Intentional murder of two or more people by public danger”), article 205 (“Terrorist act leading to severe consequences”) and article 222 (“Illegal sales, possession or use or arms or explosives”) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. “This is unambiguously a terrorist act, since strike elements were founds,” Zangiev said. “The blast seems to have occurred at the level of the waist of the person carrying the bomb.”
This is the third terrorist act near Vladikavkaz’s Central Market. In March 1999, 58 people died and more than 100 were injured by a homemade explosive that went off in the rows of food sellers. A year later, a bomb planted in an architectural element in the flower section killed 12 people. Both of the crimes were solved. Ingushetian natives Ruslan Chakhkiev and Movsar Temirbiev were charged with the crimes and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
The theory that the new terrorist act could be connected with Ingushetia was being discussed by investigators yesterday. But no one has officially advanced it. The site of the blast might have been chosen for a purpose. Most of the 19 Ingushetians and two Chechens who disappeared between the summer of 2005 and July 2007 were taken away from near the entrance to Central Market. A special investigative group headed by Alikhan Kalimatov, a lieutenant colonel in the central FSB, determined that they were all stopped by persons dressed in police uniforms on the pretext of checking their identification. Then they were taken away to an unknown location. Investigators even considered the possibility that the kidnappings were being committed as revenge for Beslan. But, after the murder of Kalimatov, the investigation was stopped. Maybe relatives of one of the kidnap victims decided to take retaliatory action. North Ossetian Interior Ministry troop have undertaken operations against rebels in North Ossetia and neighboring Ingushetia since spring and have killed suspected rebels. Vengeance could be taken for them as well.
Magomed Mutsolgov, head of the Ingushetian human rights group Mashr, which is searching for the kidnap victims, thinks that forces that want to counteract the efforts of public organizations in North Ossetia and Ingushetia to bring the peoples closer together after the 1992 conflict. According to Mutsolgov, a public forum is supposed to take place at the end of the month. It will be entitled “The Peoples of the Caucasus with Russia Forever” and participants will discuss, among other things, the problems connected with the Ossetian-Ingushetian conflict. “The terrorist act makes it doubtful that the forum will take place, and even if it does, it is unlikely that any positive decisions will be made at it,” Mutsolgov said. Someone in North Ossetia will undoubtedly look for a link between the terrorist act and Ingushetia, he said. The terrorist act will make life harder for new President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov, who has stated that he intends to deals with the kidnapping of residents of his republic, and particularly with those that occurred in Vladikavkaz. “I think it is possible that the people who ordered this terrorist act intended to block the activities of the new president as well,” Mutsolgov said.
Members of the Prosecutor General’s Office and its investigative committee are expected to arrive in Vladikavkaz today to coordinate law enforcement efforts. In the meantime, police in North Ossetia and Ingushetia have been placed on high alert. A spokesman for the North Ossetian Interior Ministry told Kommersant that ministry officers on the North Ossetian border “have been instructed to search and register all transport that crosses the border and check the identification of all passengers against a special file.”
Zaur Farniyev, Vladikavkaz; Fedor Maximov, Musa Muradov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 07, 2008
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