Unrest in Dagestan

MosNews reports the following from Dagestan:

Head of the Dagestani Interior Ministry’s Khasavyurt district organized crime department Saigidsalim Zabitov and road police inspector Shamsudi Kachakayev were killed in an attack early Wednesday morning, Interfax reported.

“A car carrying Zabitov came under fire at the intersection of Nekrasov and Pobedy Streets at about 12:30 a.m. Both policemen sitting in the car died from wounds on the spot,” the Dagestani Interior Ministry press service told Interfax.

It's not clear if this is the work of the Shariat militant group, but that group has killed many Interior Ministry officials and other law enforcement officials in Dagestan. The group is part of the Islamic insurgencies that have ravaged much of the North Caucasus.

Johnson's Russia List described the Islamic elements in Dagestan here:

Dagestan is "the scene of one of the most fervent examples of Islamic revival in the world," so it is not surprising that religious issues have a major impact on the region's politics. One aspect of Dagestan's religious politics is the division between the minority inclined toward fundamentalist (salafi) forms of Islam and the majority who remain loyal to traditional Sufi belief. (1) Professors Matsuzato (Hokkaido University) and Ibragimov (Dagestan State University) focus on another aspect that is much less well-known but of no less importance -- the overlapping ethnic and confessional divisions within the Sufi majority.

A BBC reporter has been trekking across the Caucasus, and this week has two reports from Dagestan.

Tough lessons in defiant Dagestan

But the Russian authorities view Gimri as a hotbed of radical Islam. In the past, Wahhabi militants have tried to blow up the tunnel.

A few months ago, the security forces launched a giant military operation just outside the village.

Discovering that up to eight suspected Islamic militants were hiding out in a nearby forest, the military bombarded the woodland with mortars and bullets.

The men escaped and slipped back into the village. The authorities are currently negotiating with them to get them to disarm.

Violence makes Dagestan vigilant

Derbent is 5,000 years old, making it the oldest city not only in Dagestan, but in the entire Russian Federation.

It sits on the west coast of the Caspian Sea and is dominated by an old fortress built by the Sassanids, an ancient Iranian empire, some 1,500 years ago.

I stood on the battlements looking out to sea, and pondered what we'd experienced over the last few days.