Itar-Tass Russia, CIS news summary for Sunday, July 24=2.

25/7 Tass 2

KAZAN—Two more dead male bodies found on the lifted MS Bulgaria, thus bringing the death toll to 119, Itar-Tass was told on Sunday by the Emergencies Ministry republican department. “At the moment three people are still on the missing list”, the source said.

MOSCOW — Divers have found another body inside the sunken MS Bulgaria, and the total death toll of the shipwreck is now 120, a source at the Tatarstan Emergency Situations Ministry told Itar-Tass on Sunday. “There are two people left on the missing list,” the source said. Earlier in the day the divers retrieved five bodies – three of women and two of men. The Bulgaria cruise ship is now on a bank near the Kirelskoye boat-yard next to the dock.

MOSCOW — Four out of the six bodies found on the MS Bulgaria wreck site on Sunday are identified, a source at the Tatarstan Health Ministry told Itar-Tass.

The bodies of two men and four women were taken to the republican forensic medical bureau. “Three women and a man were identified. The man is crewmember Vladimir Nazarov born in 1937. The identification of the other victims continues,” the source said.

MOSCOW— Aerial reconnaissance did not help find the Moscow tourists missing on the foothills of the Eastern Sayan Mountains in the Irkutsk region, a source at the regional emergency situations department told Itar-Tass. An unregistered group of five tourists – two men, two women and a teenage boy – started walking to the town of Verkhnyaya Gutara in the Irkutsk region in the first days of July for taking a raft ride to Solyanaya and flying back to Moscow on July 17. The tourists did not come home on time, and the worried families appealed to rescuers for help.

MOSCOW — The Moscow tourists missing on the foothills of the Eastern Sayan Mountains in the Irkutsk region have been found, a source at the regional emergency situations department told Itar-Tass by phone. “The families said that the missing tourists used a satellite phone to call home from the shore of Lake Medvezhye,” he said. “The group leader said they were in good health, did not need medical aid and carried sufficient amounts of food. The tourists lost their way.”

MOSCOW — Staff of Russia’s Interior Ministry’s K Department have repressed a criminal group, involved in production and distribution of pirate copies of films and music. They confiscated over one million discs, the department’s press service told Itar-Tass. Investigators found out that five officially unemployed residents of Moscow and the Moscow Region aged between 18 and 50 organised the group. They had certain roles in the group and used strict measures of conspiracy.

MAKHACHKALA— The regime of counter-terrorist operation has been imposed on the city of Dagestanskie Ogni on Sunday at 07.00, Itar-Tass learnt at the public relations centre of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee. “A group of gunmen was fenced off at a private home in the Tereshkova Street.” The fighting is now underway, according to a source.

MOSCOW — The supposed ringleader of the Derbent terrorist group and two possible suicide bombers were destroyed in a special operation in Dagestan, Itar-Tass learnt from a representative of the public relations centre of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAC). “Officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and of the Interior Ministry for Dagestan detected and sealed off four members of a terrorist group, operating in the republic, at a private home in the city of Dagestanskie Ogni on Sunday at 01.00,” the NAC reported.

MOSCOW — The suspected leader of the Derbent terrorist group and another two militants were killed in a police operation in Dagestan, a representative of the National Counter Terrorism Center told Itar-Tass. “The operation in the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni started at 1:00 a.m., and four militants were blocked in a house,” he said. Three of them were killed in the gunfire exchange with the police. The bodies were identified as Mekhtibek Bashirov, the leader of the Derbent terrorist group, his common-law wife, Makhachkala native Inna Cherenkova and Islamudin Gusenov. The latter’s common-law wife, Zagra Kadimagomedova, was wounded.

MOSCOW — Thailand has transferred two Russian citizens suspected of large contraband from China and money laundering, Russian Prosecutor General’s Office press secretary Marina Gridneva told Itar-Tass on Sunday. Valery Bovsun and Andrei Ustinov “smuggled over 300 train car loads of consumer goods with the total worth exceeding $70 million from China in 2006-2009. They laundered the profit and bought real estate in Thailand,” Gridneva said.

MAKHACHKALA — Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has ordered to reward the policemen who took part in the counter terrorism operation in the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni, Dagestan. “A successful operation was held this morning, and two suicide bombers were neutralized,” the minister told Dagestani policemen on Sunday. “The officers who took part in the operation must be rewarded.” “The operation prevented a large terror act,” the minister said.

MOSCOW — The suspected instigator of a conflict in the Mytishchi district of the Moscow region, in which two natives of Makhachkala died, has been detained, the Moscow regional police told Itar-Tass on Sunday. The police opened a hooliganism case. Also, five natives of Dagestan involved in the conflict were detained.

DUSHANBE — Fifty-five militants were killed and 47 detained in Tajikistan in 2011, according to Tajik Interior Minister Abudrakhim Kakhkharov. In his words, the majority of the killed militants were members of illegal armed units operating in eastern Tajikistan. They died in clashes with the police. Forty-seven detainees were charged with membership in the extremist religious party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and other criminal groups, he said.

PYATIGORSK — The terror rate in the North Caucasus has declined by approximately a third but militants are still planning high-profile crimes, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told police chiefs of the North Caucasian Federal District on Sunday. “Joint efforts of the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, the National Counter Terrorism Committee and the Federal Operative Staff cut the terror rate in the district by almost 36% in the first half of this year, as compared with the first six months of last year,” he said.

PYATIGORSK — A total of 209 militants, including 24 militant leaders, were killed in the North Caucasus in the first half of the year, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told police chiefs of the North Caucasian Federal District on Sunday. He said the number of registered crimes declined by 9.7%, including the 14.2% decline in grave crimes. “The police seized about 680 firearms, which was 1.5 times more than the year ago, and more than 135,000 pieces of ammunition, which was twice more than last year,” Nurgaliyev said.

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