Ingush authorities have begun a counter-terrorism operation in the town of Malgobek, a week after two police officers were wounded in an attack on a checkpoint at the border with North Ossetia. 

On Monday, The Magas Times, an Ingush news Telegram channel, reported that a gunfight took place after a police patrol located four individuals suspected of carrying out the 27 March attack. One officer was injured during the gunfight.

‘The head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) for the Republic of Ingushetia decided to conduct a counter-terrorist operation in the territory of the Malgobek district from 20:00 Moscow time on Monday’, reported RIA, a Russian state-owned news agency.

According to RIA, the head of the FSB in Ingushetia reported that they were searching for five Ingushetia residents ‘suspected of planning terrorist crimes’.

The FSB previously announced in the aftermath of the 29 March attack that they were searching for four suspects: Mikhail Moshkhoyev, Ramazan Eldiyev, Amir Bokov, and Amirkhan Gurazhev.

Caucasian Knot reported the death of Ramazan Eldiyev later on the day of the attack.

NIYSO, an opposition Telegram channel, has claimed that the authorities had pressed the suspects’ families for their whereabouts.

‘Many have probably heard about the five residents of Ingushetia, who cooperated and began to arrange military operations against the Russian security forces’, wrote the channel. 

‘[The authorities] put pressure on their families, forcing them to write down appeals, begging them to return home. And all this is caused by the resistance of only five men’.