NAC urges Dagestan people to present common front against militants.

MOSCOW, August 14 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's National Anti-Terrorist
Committee (NAC) has called for the consolidation of all people of Dagestan
and the entire North Caucasus against the militants, who do not stop at
murders of women, elderly people, children and religious leaders and those
who try to resist religious extremism. The NAC said in a statement on
Friday "the murder of an assistant to mufti of Dagestan Salman
(Mukhamadvakil) Sultanmagomedov that occurred on August 11, on the first
day of the Muslim holy fasting of Ramadan, once again showed the true face
of those who resort to hit-and-run raids in attempts to destabilize the
situation and intimidate the population and in every way interfere with
the restoration of law and order."
"At the same time in the arsenal of tools of intimidation used by the
bandits there are not just threats, but direct encroachments on people's
lives, both prominent public figures and ordinary citizens," the NAC
said. Sultanmagomedov was known in Dagestan and elsewhere as an active
opponent of extremism in all its manifestations. He was not only a
respected spiritual leader, but also the editor-in-chief of the Islamic
newspaper Nurul Islam and of the religious and educational channel
Makhachkala TV, and holder of the candidate of sciences degree in physics
and mathematics.
The NAC recalls that "the militant underground hads never disdained
killings of religious leaders." In January 2010 in Kizlyar, Akhmed
Magomedov, a volunteer assistant mufti and deputy imam of the central
mosque, was shot dead, and in March in the village of Yasnaya Polyana, the
Kizlyar district, militants killed a teacher of the local Muslim school,
Ilyas Dzhakhparov. Both men took an active civic stance against religious
extremism and enjoyed great credibility and prestige with the population.
The newly-converted thugs kill religious leaders of other faiths and in
doing so they cynically hide behind religious slogans and references to
religious dogmas. Thus, on July 15 in Dagestan they killed the Bishop of
the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith, A. Suleimanov."
The NAC drew attention to the fact that in recent years actions by
militants and their supporters increasingly manifest their nature of
bandits and their purely criminal interests. Violence, looting and
killings harm and claim the lives of innocent people.
"The worst thing is that children often get in the line of terrorists'
s gunfire," the NAC's statement runs. "Over the last month alone five
children aged two to fourteen years suffered from bandits' actions in the
North Caucasus." Militants' bullets take the lives of peaceful civilians,
the elders and women.
The NAC states that "persons engaged in terrorizing the population,
extortion, murder and arson, have received and will continue to receive
ever stronger rebuff from the security forces and the ordinary citizens of
Dagestan, condemnation by the authoritative representatives of the
intellectual community and the clergy inside the country but abroad."
The NAC believes that "the suppression of criminal attacks by bandits
in the south of Russia is a joint cause of all who are interested in the
socio-political stability in the region, in the progressive and
non-conflict development of the North Caucasus republics, and the
restoration of their historical reputations as centers of ancient
civilizations and culture, capable of hospitably welcoming to their soil
representatives of all countries and peoples. "