RUSSIA: Suicide bomber kills eight police officers at funeral in Russia's volatile North Caucasus Ingushetia region

Record ID: 353695

  • Title: RUSSIA: Suicide bomber kills eight police officers at funeral in Russia's volatile North Caucasus Ingushetia region
  • Date: 21st August 2012
  • Summary: VILLAGE SAGOPSHI, INGUSHETIA, RUSSIA (AUGUST 19, 2012) (REUTERS) POLICE CAR ON STREET TRAFFIC ON STREET VARIOUS OF POLICE OFFICERS AND INVESTIGATORS ON STREET CARS WITH BROKEN AND BLOWN OUT WINDOWS (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) SAGOPSHI RESIDENT BAGAUDIN KORIGOV, SAYING: "We gathered here to bury him (a killed policeman) in the morning. Police officers showed up and (then there w
  • Embargoed: 5th September 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Crime,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA79HAOK185GN5ZSC1SOZE4TGK9
  • Story Text: A suicide bomber killed at least eight policemen attending the funeral of a colleague in Russia's volatile Caucasus region of Ingushetia, on Sunday (August 19) hours after masked gunmen opened fire in a mosque in nearby Dagestan province, killing one person.
    More than a decade after federal forces toppled a separatist government in a war in Chechnya, Russia is still struggling to contain an Islamic insurgency that has spread to other southern provinces in its mainly Muslim Caucasus mountains region.
    Militants fighting to carve an Islamic state from the North Caucasus attack officials and law enforcement personnel almost daily but have also increasingly targeted mainstream Muslim leaders backed by the authorities.
    The eight policemen were killed and 15 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a wake being held on Sunday for a fellow officer shot a day earlier in the Malgobek district in the north of Ingushetia, Russian news agencies reported.
    Witnesses told Reuters a man wearing camouflage clothing detonated a suicide belt after walking up to the group of officers, who had just arrived at the funeral. A pool of blood lay in the street outside the home in the village of Sagopshi.

    "We gathered here to bury him (a killed policeman) in the morning. Police officers showed up and (then there was an) explosion. The police officers came to express their condolences, and then an explosion - smoke, dust," one Sagopshi resident told Reuters.
    The bombing came hours after two masked gunmen opened fire in a mosque in the nearby Dagestan region, killing one Muslim worshipper and wounding eight who were celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan. A man who was injured in the attack said some 50 people were gathered in the mosque at the time.
    The attacks have shaken Russia's Muslim community, many of whom were celebrating Eid ul-Fitr, known as Uraza-Bairam in Russia, to mark the end of a month of fasting for Ramadan.
    In July, Tatarstan's top Islamic official was wounded in a bomb attack and his deputy shot dead, raising fears that militancy might be spreading to Russia's heartland.
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