Deaths in North Caucasus blasts

At least 12 people killed in volatile Russian region, just days after deadly Moscow attacks.

Dagestan blast
A suicide bomber disguised as a police officer set off one of two blasts on Wednesday morning [AFP]

A high proportion of those killed were policemen, authorities said, including the town’s police chief.

The blasts come just two days after twin suicide bomb attacks in Moscow’s metro system killed 39 people and injured scores.

Escalation in violence

Russian officials have blamed Muslim separatist fighters from the North Caucasus for those attacks.

in depth

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 North Caucasus: A history of violence
 Timeline: Attacks in Russia
 Videos:
 Chechen exile sees violent response
 Russia accuses Chechen female group
 Dagestan’s struggle for peace
 Inside Story: Behind the Moscow bombings
 People and Power: Ingushetia- A second Chechnya?

Neave Barker, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Moscow, said there are fears that the bombings in Moscow and Dagestan are pointing to an escalation in violence in Russia.

“The parallels are quite striking between the attacks in Dagestan and Moscow,” he said.

“This morning the federal security service said the two female suicide bombers that blew themselves up in Moscow may have been acting as part of a group of up to 30 more suicide bombers.

“The security service believes they could have been recruited and trained by a man called Said Buryatskiy, or Alexander Tikhomirov, who was a well-known Chechen warlord.

“He was killed in a special operation by Russian forces at the beginning of March.

The North Caucasus has been the site of two wars in Chechnya and hundreds of violent attacks since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Violence has spread from Chechnya to the neighbouring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Magomed Mutsolgov, a human rights worker in Ingushetia, said: “There will be some tighter security here, more police checks, even rough violent checks, not just because of what happened in Dagestan but also in Moscow.

“And across all the north Caucusus there will be more raids, and lots of checks of suspicious people.

“There will be various lists – relatives of people who died, relatives of militia, relatives of victims.

“I’m sure there will be more violations, persecutions and discomfort for people. To put it mildly. I don’t doubt this will happen”.

‘War is coming’

In February, Doku Umarov, the leader of a Chechen opposition group, said in an interview on a separatist-affiliated website that “the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia”.

Umarov, who claimed responsibility for the bombing of a passenger train travelling between Moscow and St Petersburg in November, warned that “the war is coming to their cities”.

Monday’s attack – the deadliest in the Russian capital in six years – has fuelled fears of a broader offensive by separatists based in the North Caucasus.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister who led Moscow into a war against Chechen separatists in 1999, said on Tuesday that those behind the bombings must be
scraped “from the bottom of the sewers” and exposed.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies