After staging a series of spectacular attacks over the past three months with minimal losses, the Kabardino-Balkaria-Karachai (KBK) wing of the North Caucasus insurgency lost three fighters in a special operation early on March 10 in Shalushka, on the northwestern outskirts of Nalchik. At 5:30 that morning, security personnel surrounded the house in which the three men had presumably spent the night and tried to apprehend them; the militants were reportedly killed in the ensuing exchange of fire.
The security forces' tactics raise the question whether they were tipped off to the fighters' whereabouts. Two senior insurgency commanders in Daghestan have recently been killed in analogous attacks on their homes, Akhmed Abdulkerimov (Amir Adam) in December and Adam Guseinov (Amir Khasan) in January.
The confirmation posted on the KBK jamaat website islamdin.com identified the three dead fighters but said nothing about the circumstances in which they died.
The security forces' tactics raise the question whether they were tipped off to the fighters' whereabouts. Two senior insurgency commanders in Daghestan have recently been killed in analogous attacks on their homes, Akhmed Abdulkerimov (Amir Adam) in December and Adam Guseinov (Amir Khasan) in January.
The confirmation posted on the KBK jamaat website islamdin.com identified the three dead fighters but said nothing about the circumstances in which they died.