From: Eagle_wng
Kabardino-Balkaria resumes operation against extremists at dawn
13.08.2006, 14.29
NALCHIK, August 13 (Itar-Tass) – A special operation to track down armed extremists resumed on Sunday at dawn in a mountainous forest between the villages of Khasanya and Gerpegezh in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, the republican Interior Ministry reported. Law enforcers experience difficulties in carrying out the operation over next to impassible terrain.
The operation started early on Saturday morning as a result of a tip, received about an imminent terror act. An explosion was to thunder on that day at one of two authorized rallies in Nalchik, the capital of the republic. According to operatives, the armed gang consisted of four people. Police destroyed one of them – an active member of the so-called Yarmuk dzhamaat Mukhtar Tobayev who was on the federal Wanted List for a murder, illicit drug trafficking and an attempt on the life of police officers.
The abortive attempt by extremists to commit a terror act at a rally in Nalchik, thwarted on Saturday by republican law enforcers, did not affect the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria. The only thing was that law enforcers were put on red alert on Sunday.
Markets are open in Nalchik; municipal transport is in operation, while holidaymakers flock to their favorite places of rest. People are looking for places to escape unheard-of hot weather near municipal lakes and in shady alleys of the municipal park.
“The incident will not result in restrictions on the political life of the republic,” emphasized chief of the Kabardino-Balkaria branch of the Russian Federal Security Service Sergei Ushakov, speaking at a news conference. He again called on gunmen (hiding in forests) on behalf of the Anti-Terror Commission of the republic to surrender weapons voluntarily.
Ushakov again gave guarantees of unbiased and law-based investigation of every case and noted that gunmen who would surrender, will receive skilled lawyers’ assistance.
According to Ushakov, underground extremist organizations such as Yarmluk dzhamaat (deprived of its leaders and destroyed partially in January 2005) and Republican Shura, headed by radical leaders Anzor Astemirov and Musa Mukozhev, still operate in Kabardino-Balkaria.
They are on the federal Wanted List after engineering the attack on Nalchik on October 13, 2005. Ushakov noted that these organizations jointly have several dozens of people. “But they do not present main threat for the republic,” he added.
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