Breaking news
Russia has sent military troops into the southern region of Dagestan to combat terrorism 2003122.
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Defense News - Russia |
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| Tuesday, March 20, 2012, 08:16 AM | |||
| Russia has sent military troops into the southern region of Dagestan to combat terrorism. | |||
Russia
is sending a “temporary detachment” of troops into the southern
region of Dagestan, whose border lies about 200 kilometers (124 miles)
north of Iran, to combat terrorism, the Interior Ministry said. |
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 Russian army soldiers with BMP-3 armoured infantry fighting vehicle Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan (Archive image) |
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“We are talking about a temporary deployment and coordination to prevent and counter terrorism and extremism across the whole territory of Dagestan,” Vyacheslav Makhmudov, a spokesman for the regional Interior Ministry, said from the republic’s capital city, Makhachkala. About 1,000 troops are being moved from the nearby region of Chechnya to form temporary police units in municipalities with “complicated criminal conditions,” said Magomed Baachilov, the secretary of Dagestan’s state security council. The realignment of forces was ordered by Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev, with Oleg Kizhayev, a police colonel, named in charge of the ministry detachment in Dagestan, the Interior Ministry’s main directorate for the North Caucasus said on its website today. The authorities were deploying 20,000 to 25,000 federal troops from Khankala, the main Russian army base in Chechnya, according to reports published in Caucasian Knot, a Moscow-based news and analysis group that tracks the situation in the North and South Caucasus, and the weekly Dagestani publication Chernovik, which cited unidentified local law-enforcement officials. A convoy of armored personnel carriers and military vehicles was seen moving toward southern Dagestan from March 14 to March 17, the reports said. |
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