ELIZABETH JACKSON: It is a land of breathless beauty and a violent Islamic insurgency. Dagestan, in the north Caucasus, is now the most dangerous part of Russia.
It was from there, nearly a year ago, two women set out on a suicide mission to Moscow. They boarded the city's metro with bombs strapped to their bodies and killed dozens. Both were so-called black widows, who had been married to insurgents killed by security forces.
Our Moscow correspondent Norman Hermant travelled to Dagestan to the hometown of one of the bombers, deep in the mountains. As he explains, it was not an easy trip.
NORMAN HERMANT: At the risk of stating the obvious, you don't just drop in to the Russian Republic of Dagestan. This part of the North Caucasus, bordering Chechnya, is the most violent place in Russia. Last year Islamic insurgents launched 120 attacks here. Bombings, ambushes, suicide blasts, are common.
We came here in the lead up to the first anniversary of the Moscow Metro bombings to learn more about one of the women who strapped on a 1.5 kilogram bomb, boarded the metro last March 29th last year, and killed 26 people.
Mariam Sharipova was a teacher with degrees in mathematics and psychology. She is also believed to a so-called black widow. She was married to a militant killed by security forces. It's believed she was ordered to carry out her suicide mission in Moscow.
We spoke first with Dagestan's deputy first premier in the heavily secured government building in the capital, Makhachkala. Rizvan Kurbanov told us Mariam is like other young women who have fallen under the influence of militants. He says they've been sold a falsehood, that Muslims are persecuted here.
To see for ourselves, it was time to make our way to Mariam's home, in the small mountain village of Balakhani. ABC producer Olga Pavlova had made painstaking preparations before our trip. The security situation in Dagestan is stable, but abductions do happen.
In the end, the biggest concern was the roads. Winding through the mountains, covered in ice and snow with seemingly endless drops just past the roadside, we made our way past drab villages and stunning scenery.
Not far from our destination, as we filmed from a bridge, a black Mercedes SUV approached, and passed slowly. No doubt the interior ministry was monitoring our progress. And good thing they were. Not long after, on a small dirt track, clinging to a mountain side, our driver Gassan's Lada could make it no further.
We got out, pushed, threw tree branches under the tires. Stuck, until miraculously a truck rambled slowly up the road. Loaded with dirt and two men in back shovelling it onto the road. Just enough to get us going. There are benefits to being watched, Gassan told us.
Finally, we reached Balakhani and met Mariam's father, Rasul Magomedov. With his full grey beard and intense eyes, he told us of the days after the bombing. How he recognised Mariam from pictures published on the internet showing the head of one of the suspected suicide bombers. How Mariam had slowly drifted towards radicalism when she returned to Balakhani after college. And how he could not believe his daughter had secretly married an insurgent fighter who was killed in a shoot out with Russian security forces.
He told us he was sorry innocent lives were lost when his daughter bombed the Moscow Metro. But even after a year, he said he understands why his daughter did it, likely on the orders of another militant leader. He told us she had acted on the inspiration of another, and that she went to her death for the sake of Allah. It was an honourable way to die. Something Russia's leaders will never understand, he said.
As we left Balakhani, it was easy to see why the Islamic insurgency has proved so resilient. Like many other Dagestani villages, it's isolated, poor and routinely subjected to harsh sweeps by Russian paramilitary troops. Painted in the muddy main square, in front of wandering livestock and near the town mosque, are the names of fallen insurgent leaders.
The Government here says it's confident that soon black widow suicide bombers from Dagestan will be a thing of the past. In Balakhani, they're not so sure.
This is Norman Hermant in Dagestan for Correspondents Report.
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