Recently in Dagestan Category

The Tsarnaev brothers lived in this area for years. "Suicide car bombing in Russia's Dagestan injures 11," from Reuters, May 25 (thanks to Lookmann):

(Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew herself up in car near a police building in Russia's Dagestan region on Saturday, injuring 11 policemen and passers-by, Russian media reported.

Dagestan, an ethnically mixed, mostly Muslim region between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea, has become the most violent province in the North Caucasus, where insurgents say they are fighting to carve out an Islamic state out of southern Russia.

The bomb was detonated after police stopped the car to check the driver's documents, some 100 meters from the regional police ministry in the center of Makhachkala, the regional capital.

Police sources told local media the only person killed was the bomber, whom they identified as the former wife of two militants. It is not unusual for women to carry out suicide bombings in the region. They are often the widows of militants.

Two policemen injured in the blast were in a critical condition, police said, with nine other people requiring hospital treatment....

Not that the young Tsarnaev brothers could have picked up anything from their environment. "4 dead, 44 hurt in Dagestan bombing, security officials say," by Nick Paton Walsh for CNN, May 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Makhachkala, Dagestan (CNN) -- At least four people are dead and 44 are injured after two bombs exploded Monday in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, the Ministry of Health's website says.

Thirty-one of the injured were hospitalized, it says.

The incident -- which occurred in Makhachkala, capital of the semi-autonomous republic of Dagestan -- also caused significant damage. Security officials say they believe law enforcement officers may have been the target because the explosion occurred outside a local marshal's building.

One car bomb was discovered by a police patrol, who called in a unit to defuse it. Before that could be done, the bomb went off, but the explosion was minor, security officials said. Then, as a crowd of people gathered, a second, more powerful device detonated, causing the casualties.

An Islamic insurgency has taken hold in the North Caucasus and there is a strong presence of Islamic militants fighting Moscow's rule.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev -- the suspects in the Boston Marathon terror attack last month -- had ties with the region. The brothers are ethnic Chechens who lived in Kyrgyzstan and Dagestan....

With numerous ties to jihadists. "Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is a Prominent Islamist," by Simon Shuster for Time.com, May 8 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.”

Since April 19, when Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar were publicly identified as being the key suspects in the bombing of the Boston Marathon, investigators have been trying to work out how they were radicalized to the point of wanting to kill and main people in the United States, the country the brothers had called home for much of their lives. (Tsarnaev was killed during a manhunt for the two men in Boston; his younger brother was shot but survived and has been charged with acts of terrorism including using a weapon of mass desctruction resulting in death. If convicted he could face the death penalty.) Much of the investigators’ attention has focused on Tsarnaev’s visit to Dagestan in 2012. It appears that investigators have only recently begun exploring Tsarnaev’s links to his cousin.

On May 5, three agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, the agency known as the FSB, interrogated Kartashov for the first time about the Boston bombings, according to his lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva. The FSB agents were interested in whether Kartashov and Tsarnaev had ever discussed Islamic radicalism, Abdullaeva says.

Kartashov told them that they had, but claimed that Tsarnaev was the one trying to “pull him in to extremism,” says the lawyer, who spoke to Kartashov soon after the interrogation. (It was impossible to ask Kartashov about this directly; he has been in jail since April 27 after a brawl with police in northern Dagestan, and prison officials denied TIME’s requests to visit him or have him answer questions in writing. His lawyer agreed to pass a reporter’s questions to him in jail.) In recounting her client’s replies, the lawyer said: “Kartashov tried to talk [Tsarnaev] out of his interest in extremism.”...

This is the handiwork of the ideological kin of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev -- not that the jihad in Dagestan is unique. The trail of blood encompasses the entire world. "Bomb in Russia's Dagestan Kills 2," from the Associated Press, May 1 (thanks to Lookmann):

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — A bomb exploded Wednesday in a busy shopping area in the capital of the restive republic of Dagestan, killing at least two people, police said.

The bomb went off when two teenage boys tried to open a cardboard box left near a store and both of them were killed, police said.

The explosion in Makhachkala also wounded an undetermined number of people, said a spokeswoman for the republic's Interior Ministry, Fatina Ubaidatova. She did not have details on the force or construction of the bomb.

Dagestan is plagued by Islamic insurgents who frequently mount small attacks on police and security forces, with bombs often placed in cars or along roads. Wednesday's explosion, however, was unusual in that the target was not clear....

They acted alone, eh? That is looking increasingly unlikely. "Boston bombs showed some expertise," by Brian Bennett, Richard A. Serrano and Ken Dilanian for the Los Angeles Times, April 24 (thanks to Benedict):

WASHINGTON — Investigators said the two Boston Marathon bombs were triggered by long-range remote controls for toy cars — a more sophisticated design than originally believed — bolstering a theory that the older suspect received bomb-making guidance on his six-month trip to Russia last year.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a shootout with police last week, "more than likely got some instruction in Dagestan," a federal law enforcement official said Wednesday.

The official said investigators continued to believe that Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, were radicalized in the U.S., and that no foreign terrorist group orchestrated the plot.

Nevertheless, the CIA revealed Wednesday that it had asked the FBI and other federal agencies to put Tamerlan Tsarnaev on the terrorism watch list in October 2011 after receiving information from Russia. His name was not placed on a no-fly list, but it was circulated to various intelligence and domestic security agencies.

The information the CIA received "was nearly identical to the information the FBI received in March 2011" from Russia, one official said — unspecific allegations that he had become an Islamic extremist.

The CIA shared all the information provided by the foreign government including two possible dates of birth, his name and a possible name variant as well, an official said.

FBI and Russian security services have been conducting interviews separately in the Dagestan area since the Tsarnaev brothers became suspects in the bombings last week, according to a federal law enforcement official. The agencies are talking to Tsarnaev family members, including the father of the brothers....

Jihad spreading in the North Caucasus. "Police Official Gunned Down in Russia’s Dagestan," from RIA Novosti, November 5 (thanks to Maxwell):

MOSCOW/MAKHACHKALA, November 5 (RIA Novosti) - A Police official was killed on Monday in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, the Interior Ministry said.

Lt. Col. Valery Aidayev, head of the district Criminal Investigation Department, was shot dead by an unidentified assailant, the ministry said.

Police have mounted a citywide manhunt for the assailants but no suspects have been detained yet.

The Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to Chechnya, has spread in recent years across the North Caucasus. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are also reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Why we don't see more genuine Muslim reformers -- not that Kalimulla Ibragimov seems to have been much of one, anyway: "Russia Caucasus: Imam shot dead in Derbent, Dagestan," from the BBC, October 30 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Attackers have shot dead an imam and two of his male relations, as they drove to a mosque in the Russian North Caucasus region of Dagestan.

They were shot on their way to morning prayers, close to the imam's home in the Caspian Sea town of Derbent, law enforcement sources told reporters.

The cleric was named as Kalimulla Ibragimov, 49, who is said to have delivered sermons calling for peace.

Islamists have been blamed for attacks on moderate Muslims in the region.

Dagestan, a mainly Muslim region, has been gripped by an Islamist insurgency since 1999, when militants backed by fighters from neighbouring Chechnya launched an offensive against Russian control.

Three imams have been shot dead in the region since March, the Russian news website utro.ru reports.

Mr Ibragimov is said by Russian media to have been a "Salafist", a term used for Islamic radicals. Nonetheless, according to utro.ru, he "often gave sermons and made appeals for peace and Muslim unity"....

Why we don't see more Muslim reformers. "Religious Leader Killed in Russia's Dagestan," from RIA Novosti, June 29 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

An imam has been killed in a mosque in Russia's southern Dagestan region, police said on Friday.

The four masked assailants also killed another man and set the mosque on fire, before fleeing the scene in a stolen car.

The imam, Magomedkamil Gamzatov, was well-known for his rejection of "any form of violence and openly condemned the extremist insurgency," the National Anti-Terror Committee said in a statement....

More Islamophobia in the Caucasus. "Explosions in Dagestan Kill 13, Wound More Than 120," from The Moscow Times, May 4 (thanks to David):

Two explosions went off at a traffic post in Makhachkala late Thursday, killing at least 13 people and wounding more than 120 in what police have unequivocally ruled a terrorist attack.

A suicide bomber heading out of Makhachkala, the regional capital of the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, detonated the first explosive at the Alaska-30 traffic station around 10:20 p.m. The exact sequence of events is unclear, with one version of the story that the terrorists rammed the checkpoint building with their car and setting off the explosions, and another that they detonated the bomb after police became suspicious of the vehicle and decided to check it as it was leaving the city.

As first responders began to arrive on the scene about twenty minutes later, a second more powerful explosive was detonated in a Gazel, a type of van commonly used for public transport, which was already parked near the station.

Police said the first explosion was equivalent to 30 kg of TNT, while the second was equivalent to 50 kg. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the bombs were improvised explosive devices stuffed with construction dowels three to five cm long.

The explosions were powerful enough to send the engine of the first car, a Lada Priora, 200 meters from the scene of the explosion, and at least 20 nearby cars caught fire, Interfax reported. Investigators have also found fragments of bodies that could belong to the attackers, including a man’s foot and pieces of a female body, police source told Interfax.

At least 13 have died so far. Seven of those who died were policemen, and three were emergency responders. An additional 122 people were injured, with at least 63 of the 87 victims in the hospital in critical or highly critical condition. The other injured victims have already been released from the hospital....

Armed conflicts between militants and security forces are frequent in the republics of the North Caucasus. In early March, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a traffic post about 40 kilometers south of Makhachkala, killing five cops.