A daring terrorist attack on a hydropower station in the southern republic of Kabardino-Balkaria on Wednesday killed two police guards and stirred fears that Islamist militants, emboldened by a first success, might start pursuing other economic targets.
The attack, which saw three to five gunmen break into the 25-megawatt station and plant five bombs on the premises, marks a milestone for Islamist militants, who have threatened to attack economic targets across Russia since at least 2009 but never before succeeded.
The Baksan station, located 24 kilometers northwest of the regional capital, Nalchik, will be closed for six to eight weeks for repairs, Ali Sottayev, director of RusHydro’s unit in Kabardino-Balkaria, said on NTV television.
No power outages resulted from the attack, Vesti state television reported.
The unidentified attackers entered the station at about 4:20 a.m., shooting the two guards to death, the station's owner, state-controlled RusHydro, said in a statement.
The attackers then captured and tortured two employees to find out the location of the generators, which are the core of the station, a RusHydro official told Gazeta.ru. The station has an alarm button, but the employees failed to react quickly enough to activate it, the report said.
The attackers struck one employee with the butts of their guns and slashed the other with a knife, but left them both alive, the official said. No other people were present at the station.
Moving on to the room housing the station's three generators, the assailants planted five bombs, four of which went off at about 5:25 a.m., RusHydro said. The fifth bomb was defused later by the Federal Security Service.
The Moscow Times
