Perilous Times
400 police killed in 5 years in Russian province
The Associated Press
Sunday, October 3, 2010; 2:04 PM
MOSCOW -- More than 400 police officers and other law enforcement
agents have been killed by militants over the past five years in just
one of Russia's restive southern provinces, its leader says.
Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of the province of Ingushetia west of
Chechnya, said at a rally Saturday that more than 3,000 civilians have
been wounded in attacks by militants in the region over the same
period, a statement on his administration's official website said
Sunday.
Yevkurov himself was badly wounded by a suicide bombing of his convoy
in June 2009.
Ingushetia and other provinces in Russia's restive North Caucasus
region have been plagued by Islamic militant attacks, which spread
across the region after two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.
Rights groups say that police abuses against civilians have fueled
violence.
In another volatile Caucasus province, Dagestan, a police officer was
killed late Saturday when unidentified gunmen shot him from a passing
car, regional police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov said Sunday.
And on Sunday, a passenger jet flying from Moscow to Chechnya's
provincial capital, Grozny, was diverted after an anonymous caller
claimed it had an explosive device on board, Russian news agencies
reported.
The Yak-42 plane landed safely in Volgograd, a southern city on the
Volgra River, its 73 passengers were evacuated and the authorities
checked the plane for explosives but found none, the local branch of
Russia's Federal Security Service said in a statement carried by
Russian newswires.