Investigators leave questions about links of those killed in Dagestan with IS unanswered

Seven days after the incident, investigators have failed to finally identify all those alleged militants killed during the counterterrorist operation (CTO) conducted in the Khasavyurt District, a source from the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has informed. The issue of their involvement in terrorist organizations remains unclear.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 22, during a shootout in the forest located between the villages of Goksuv and Mutsalaul in the Khasavyurt District, six men were killed, whom law enforcers have declared to be militants. According to the Russian National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC), the casualties had links with the "Islamic State" (IS, earlier ISIL, is an international terrorist organization, banned in Russia by the court), and planned to commit terror acts.

Now, a week after the CTO, conducted in the Khasavyurt District of Dagestan, investigators continue identifying the casualties, Rasul Temirbekov, the press secretary of ICRF branch for Dagestan, told the "Caucasian Knot" on May 29. He did not specify the exact number of suspects.

According to Mr Temirbekov, investigators managed to identify the killed alleged members of a militant grouping only "preliminarily"; and no identification of the bodies with the participation of relatives has been conducted yet. Now, investigators establish whether among the casualties were those involved in terror acts, as well as those who had joined international terrorist organizations. If any of such are found, then their bodies, according to the law, will not be given out to relatives for burial, the source of the ICRF branch has explained.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 30, 2020 at 01:50 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.