Hostages killed during special operation in Ingushetia

According to recent data, five officers of republican and federal security agencies were killed and four wounded during a 10-hour combat with rebels who took cover in a private house in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, Ingushetia's Sunzha district. Dead bodies of three rebels have been found in the house. One of them is Magomed Khashiyev, the resident of Ordzhonikidzevskaya known as commander of the Sunzha Wahhabi jamaat. The other two are residents of the same village: 34-year-old Ruslan Sampiyev and Khamzat Evloyev. Two people who were taken hostages by the rebels - Vakha Korigov, an officer of the Sunzha district police department, and an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service's Ingush department - were also killed as a result of firing.

The operation to destroy the rebels started at about 11 a.m. on April 17 and lasted till 10 p.m. "Officers of the Russian Federal Security Service's Ingush department made an attempt to detain the bandits, but the latter offered armed resistance," a source at the Sunzha police department said to the Caucasian Knot correspondent.

The military tried to persuade the rebels into stopping resistance and releasing the hostages. At about 3 p.m., after all the means to persuade the rebels into voluntarily giving themselves up had been exhausted, the decision was made to storm the house.

According to available information, altogether some 400-500 officers of the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministries of Russia and Ingushetia were involved in the operation. Witnesses report that Chechen special operations units also took part in it.

The Ingush Interior Ministry's press service has refused to comment the developments in Ordzhonikidzevskaya, referring to the lack of any information on the matter. The Caucasian Knot correspondent has found out that the alleged presence of a woman and a child in the house has not been confirmed. Reports that the rebels asked to give them a corridor so that they could leave the encirclement and promised to release the hostages in exchange do not represent the facts either.

Republican law-enforcement agencies are taking measures to search for and detain the killed rebels' possible confederates.