A suicide car bomber managed to enter a military camp near the Dagestani city of Buinaksk over the weekend because of poor security measures implemented by the military, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Monday.
Four servicemen were killed and 35 others were injured when the bomber detonated his explosives Sunday. The fourth soldier died in the hospital on Monday, Interfax reported.
Poor security measures paved the way for the attack, and the Defense Ministry will complete a preliminary inquiry on Wednesday or Thursday, said Serdyukov, who returned to Moscow on Monday after visiting the site of Sunday's attack on President Dmitry Medvedev’s orders, RIA-Novosti reported.
He did not elaborate on the security measures, but Valery Baranov, former commander-in-chief of the military's North Caucasus forces, said the battalion that camped out on the Dalny firing range had neglected to protect their tents by digging trenches and keeping a distance of several dozen meters between the camp's gates and the main camp, Interfax reported.
The suicide bomber, who remained unidentified Monday, smashed through the camp's gates at about 1 a.m. and drove his explosives-laden Lada toward the tents where soldiers from the 36th Motorized Brigade were sleeping. But the bomber was stopped by a truck driver, who blocked his path with a GAZ-66 truck, and he detonated his explosives.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Gazeta.ru said it might have been staged by Israpil Velidzhanov, who replaced Magomedali Vagabov, killed by security forces in August, as the leader of the Dagestani Islamist militants.
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