The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

Kremlin’s North Caucasus policy questioned as ongoing suicide bombings claim 55 lives in less than two weeks
Two separate suicide bombings killed 3 police officers in Ingushetia, just days after militants from the North Caucasus claimed responsibility for the deadly double suicide attack in the Moscow subway that killed 40 people on March 29. Last week, Russian authorities identified the second female suicide bomber in that attack. The 28-year-old Maryam Sharipova was a teacher from Dagestan believed by authorities to be the widow of a local militant leader.

The attack in Ingushetia occurred on Monday, April 5, in Karabulak, 15 miles northeast of the capital, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device while attempting to enter the local police compound, killing two officers in the process. Minutes later, a second explosion went off as authorities searched the attacker’s vehicle parked nearby, a tactic often used by the militants to inflict maximum casualties on authorities investigating the crime scene. No one was injured during the second explosion.

Another police officer was killed on April 9 during a special operation against a group of militants suspected of organizing the Karabulak attack. According to the authorities, the policeman was killed when a female suicide bomber approached a group of officers and opened fire on them before detonating an explosive device strapped to her body. She was later identified as the wife of one of the militants killed during the special operation.

The latest female suicide bombing in Ingushetia is the third such attack by the so-called “black widows” in less than two weeks, leaving many Russians fearful of a renewed campaign of violence and suicide attacks that terrorized the country at the height of the second Chechen military campaign earlier this decade. Since then, the conflict in the North Caucasus has been largely subdued, with the exception of sporadic attacks. The Kremlin officially announced the end of military operations in Chechnya in April 2009, but the recent escalation in militant attacks and the latest suicide bombings in Moscow have left many wondering if the Kremlin’s indiscriminate tactics are only radicalizing the local population and fueling a growing insurgency.

Elsewhere in the region, the head of Kabardino-Balkaria’s criminal investigation department was killed on Saturday, April 10, when an explosive device planted in his vehicle detonated.