Investigators have opened into the suspected killing of seven servicemen by a border guard in Dagestan, who investigators said shot at his colleagues "for no apparent reason," while a news report said he was suspected of being an Islamic fundamentalist.
Federal investigators on Wednesday also named a suspect in a suicide bombing in Dagestan that killed a leading Sufi Muslim cleric and seven others.
At around 4 p.m. Tuesday, sergeant Ramzan Aliyev approached a border post in Derbent in the southern republic and fired at least 30 rounds at his fellow servicemen "for no apparent reason," killing two of them and wounding two others, the Investigative Committee said in a statement posted on its website Wednesday.
Aliyev then walked over to a gathering of Altai police forces on a service trip to Dagestan, whom he fired upon, killing five officers and wounding four others, the statement said. Aliyev was then killed by responding fire from the officers, it said.
A criminal case has been opened against Aliyev on murder charges, the statement said.
A law enforcement source told Interfax on Wednesday that authorities had tried to have Aliyev discharged from the border guard service three times for supposedly reading fundamentalist Muslim literature.
In a separate statement, the Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case in connection with a bombing Tuesday in the village of Chirkey also in Dagestan.
The bombing killed prominent Islamic spiritual leader Said Atsayev, six people standing near him and a woman who triggered the explosion, the statement released Tuesday evening said.
Investigators suspect a woman named Aminat Kurbanov, 30, of being the suicide bomber, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing a separate Investigative Committee statement. Kurbanov's suspected motive for the bombing was linked to Atsayev's "religious activity," the statement said, without elaborating.
Islamic militants seeking to establish a fundamentalist state in the North Caucasus have in the past attacked moderate Muslim leaders in the region.
Investigators have opened a criminal investigation with charges of murder, illegal weapons trafficking and illegal use of a weapon in connection with the bombing, the statement said.
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