Makhachkala's War on Terror -- A Week in a City Under Siege
by Paul Murphy Ph.D.
8 July 2005
(Paul Murphy is the author of Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror, Brassey's Inc., 2004.)

For six months now the Russian republic of Dagestan has been pounded with a series of deadly terror attacks killing several major political figures and scores of Interior Ministry policemen. Makhachkala, the republic's capital, has suffered the most. If official statistics are correct, there have been 58 terror attacks (other reports says 70) since the beginning of 2005, 40 of which have taken place in Makhachkala.

"There are endless attacks on law enforcement authorities and the killing of government figures," Magomedali Magomedov, the head of Dagestan's State Council, tells us. But who is doing the killing and why? Magomedov says that "extremists, wahhabis, bent on the destruction of authority in the republic of Dagestan and destabilization of the region" are to blame.

On Friday, l July, at 2:15 in the afternoon, those extremists killed 11 of Moscow's elite spetsnaz policemen and wounded 25 other servicemen and passersby in yet another major bombing in Makhachkala. As if to send a message to the Dagestani court trying the case against Muad Abdurazakov (alias Abkhazsky Murad) and Abdulkhalim Abdulkarimov, both accused of carrying out the 9 May 2002 Victory Day parade bombing in Kaspiisk which left 42 dead and 132 wounded, a bomb hidden under a city water pipe on Atayeva street blew up a military truck full of Moscow's MVD troops outside a public bathhouse.

Authorities are pointing an accusing finger at the "Shariat djamaat" terrorist organization operating in Dagestan. I have in the past reported on the activities of the Shariat which is subordinated to Dagestani field commander Rappani Khalilov, who, if he is still alive, reports to Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev. Khalilov is said to have been the organizer of 2002 Kaspiisk terror attack, but was reportedly killed in 2003, although no body has ever been found.

The Shariat djamaat most recently claimed responsibility for the assassination of Dagestan's Minister of Nationalities, Information and External Communication Zagir Arukhov. Shariat is also believed responsible for the assassination of deputy MVD minister Magomed Omarov in February 2005. This time Shariat targeted Moscow's elite MVD "Rus" battalion which had been sent to Dagestan only two weeks ago to help the local MVD conduct "operation filter" designed to ferret out the republic's Islamic extremists. "Filter" had got underway on 4 June after a 3 a.m. garbage pile bomb blew up an UAZ police vehicle with three policemen inside.

Friday's 5-7 kilogram bomb reinforced with metal objects (nails, bolts, nuts, screws, ball bearings) peppered the military truck and its occupants with piercing shrapnel. Sultan Akhmedilov, an employee at the nearby "Arizl" bank and an eye-witness recalls the images all too well:

"The cabin of the truck was completely filled with smoke. I saw how the left side of the vehicle had been punctured with nails and metal objects from the bomb. Then I saw people bailing out of the truck. It was just horrible; dead bodies and those wounded lying in puddles of blood. Many had serious head wounds. Some of the wounded swore, others summoned help, and others were paralyzed in a state of shock. I called the ambulance and police on my mobile telephone; I also helped the wounded to ambulances."

Russia's Minister of the Interior Rashid Nurgaliyev immediately put together a special operations group to investigate the attack. The Russian media reported that a "spetzoperation" to find those responsible began that Friday night. While the local MVD said it expected the "first results" by Saturday, nothing was immediately reported, probably because of the paralysis caused by the pending shakeup in police leadership.

By Monday morning, 4 July, police commanders' heads began rolling for their failure to prevent this and other recent terror attacks in Makhachkala. The chief of the city's MVD Yusup Abdulayev was fired as were the commanders of the Sovetsky and Kirovsky district MVDs Magomed Abdurazakov and Guseinali Adzhamatov. A third, ROVD Leninsky district chief Mukhtar Murtuzaliyev, was forced to retire.

The republic's MVD chief, General-Lieutenant of Police Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, said the firings were because of leadership incompetence in the past six months of combating terrorism in the city.

Magomedali Magomedov thinks the decision was the right one. "The situation in the republic is getting worse, far more difficult," Magomedov said, commenting on the firings. Magomedov is now publicly demanding more "active work" by local law enforcement agencies and hopes that the change in MVD leadership will work to that end.

Shariat commander Rasul Makasharipov (alias "Muslim") was pleased with the firings too. "I will fire them all, but those who stay, I will kill," Muslim wrote in a gloating note to the MVD.

The new MVD leadership was appointed Wednesday, 6 July, but not before the enemy had struck again. At 7:10 Monday evening, local parliamentary member Zubair Tatayev was shot twenty-five times in his Mercedes in the republic's Khasavyurtovsky district. And on Tuesday, a bomb killed two policeman on Aeroportovsky Shosse in the Kirovsky district of Makhachkala. Two more 5 kilogram bombs were found and disarmed at the Russian drama theater on Leninsky Prospect in the center of the city. Authorities believe they were meant for a police bus which passes by the theater.

Police finally acted on Wednesday morning, storming a building at #38 Gadshiyeva street in which several Shariat members were holed up. The MVD's press center reported that one terrorist was killed and one was wounded in the 8 a.m. spetzoperation. Police at the scene reported that three had been killed, one was wounded and one captured, while two got away in a taxi and a "Niva" automobile heading south in the city. One civilian was also killed and one wounded by terrorists' gunfire. Two policemen died.

Identification of the dead terrorists went late into the night as yet another bomb in the Leninsky district of Makhachkala targeted a transport train. There were no casualties in the midnight bombing.

The next day, Thursday, 7 July, the gravity of the week turned to quiet jubilee and private celebration when the medical examiner announced that one of the terrorists killed at the house on Gadshiyeva street was none other than Rasul Makasharipov himself. He had been reported killed in January 2005 too, but this time relatives and medical evidence positively identified the body. The second terrorist killed was a Makhachkala resident by the name of Shamil Kebedov who was also wanted for multiple police assassinations.

The police could hardly believe their good fortune. Makasharipov's death is a significant victory and a blow to Shamil Basayev's determined campaign to turn Dagestan and all of the North Caucasus into a war zone. Unfortunately, Shariat's leader's death will not end the terror in Makhachkala or Dagestan, but it may briefly slow the intensity of terror giving the new MVD leadership an opportunity to reorganize. But will the new police leadership take advantage of this opportunity and act to take a more "active part" in combating terrorism as Magomedov is demanding?

Back to the two men on trial for the 2002 Kaspiisk bombing? Did the 1 July terror attack influence the outcome of their trial? The prosecution argued in court that Abdurazakov was the one who carried out the attack, while Abdulkarimov videotaped the explosion. But on the evening of 1 July the jury announced that the prosecution had failed to present sufficient evidence to convict either man in the 2002 Kaspiisk bombing. But jurors did find them guilty of participation in an illegal armed formation, illegal possession of arms, and Abdurazakov guilty of preparing explosives and murdering the head of the Russian pension fund for Dagestan Sharaputdin Musayev. Abdulkarimov was also found guilty of murder and possessing a forged passport.

And so the prosecution was left without anyone to charge for executing the Kaspiisk bombing. However, on 7 July the defiant trial judge sealed the fates of the two men by sentencing Abdurazakov to 18 years at hard labor in a penal colony--three years longer than the term asked for by the prosecution--and Abdulkarimov 11 years. If the judge hadn't been targeted for assassination earlier, he surely will be now as Makhachkala braces for more of the same terror this summer.