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Bomb attack on deputy interior minister of Ingushetia

On May 17, 2006 a roadside bomb detonated on the outskirts of Nazran, Ingushetia, killing Ingushetian Deputy Interior Minister Dzhabrail Kostoev, his two bodyguards and four civilians.

The incident took place in the Nasyr-Kortovsky municipal district when a parked car exploded next to a passing convoy that included Kostoev’s vehicle.

Kommersant reported on May 18 that Kostoev was on his way to work from his home in the village Ekazhevo in Nazran’s suburbs and that the bomb in the parked VAZ-2109 detonated just after the convoy, which included Kostoev’s armored Chevrolet jeep and two accompanying Volgas, crossed a bridge over a small river known locally as Nazranovka.

According to the newspaper, the blast took place at the precise moment that Kostoev’s jeep was passing the VAZ-2109. “The blast hurled the jeep forward and to the left, onto the median strip, around 25 meters, and at that time a Zhiguli… with four construction workers inside who were driving to work, came toward it. The jeep flew into the Zhiguli, the [collision] was very strong, the gas tank caught fire and both cars blew up,” Ingushetian Interior Ministry press secretary Nazir Yevloev told the newspaper, adding that the passengers in both cars died immediately.

According to Kommersant, virtually nothing remained of the VAZ-2109 that contained the explosives or the Zhiguli that was hit by Kostoev’s jeep. The explosion left the jeep a burned-out shell. Ingushetia’s chief prosecutor, Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov, told Kommersant that the force of the blast equaled roughly 100 kilograms of TNT.

Kostoev had battled the Ingush insurgency, although his drive was fueled by the deaths of two of his brothers, policemen who were killed during the rebel assault on Ingushetia in June 2004 (Kommersant, May 18). The first attempt to kill Kostoev was made in 2005, when he was the police chief of Nazran. A roadside bomb hit his car, wounding him, but Dzhabrail managed to survive. Kostoev refused to be cowed by the militants and did not hesitate to assist the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in fighting the Ingush and Chechen insurgents.

Just two days before the assassination of Kostoev, the Kavkaz Center website posted an interview with Amir Magas, the commander of the Ingush insurgency. Magas said that Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev had convened a meeting of the North Caucasus rebel commanders in Chechnya during which he called on rebel factions to set up “special operations groups all over the Caucasian front, which should target personalities and conduct operations to destroy objects planned in advance.” Magas called the formation of these groups an adequate response to the FSB activities in the region (Kavkaz Center, May 15).