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The North Caucasus Remains Russia's Perpetual Problem Region

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  • The North Caucasus Remains Russia's Perpetual Problem Region

    THE NORTH CAUCASUS REMAINS RUSSIA'S PERPETUAL PROBLEM REGION
    Mairbek Vatchagaev

    Jamestown Foundation
    Nov 30 2009

    A Russian Interior Ministry forces soldier examines a police vehicle
    in in Grozny.

    The resounding speech made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in his
    annual address to the country's parliament had no impact whatsoever
    on the situation in the North Caucasus (www.kremlin.ru, November 12).

    While local officials are left guessing who will become the Kremlin's
    man in charge in the North Caucasus (www.kp.md, November 12), reports
    of shootings and special security operations targeting members of
    the armed resistance keep arriving from the region.

    Nearly all the attacks on siloviki perpetrated by members of
    Ingushetia's Sharia Jamaat occur in the republic's flatlands, which
    refutes the established belief that the insurgents operate in the
    mountains or woodlands. The attacks are more common on the Kavkaz
    (Caucasus) federal highway, particularly in the stretch of highway
    from the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya to the city of Nazran.

    According to local sources (www.ingushetiyaru.org and
    www.ingushetia.org), several attacks on policemen were registered
    recently in the area of the Ekazhevo settlement, which is in
    Ingushetia's Nazran district. On November 20, two policemen were
    wounded inside their vehicle when it was fired on in broad daylight.

    One of them, M. B. Shauhalov, subsequently died in the hospital. That
    same night, unknown individuals shot up the courthouse of Ekazhevo
    with assault rifles and then set it on fire. Meanwhile, armed attacks
    on military motorcades and police stations no longer shock anyone
    in Ingushetia (www.ingushetiyaru.org, November 14, 15). Since the
    forced resignation of Ruslan Aushev, Ingushetia's first president,
    in April 2002, the kidnapping of young people by the siloviki remains
    the most pressing problem in the republic.

    Meanwhile, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has been losing count of
    the militants he personally eliminated. Almost all siloviki operations
    against militants in Chechnya are conducted under his personal
    supervision. According to Russian news sources, 35 militants were
    killed in October (www.chechen-republic.com, November 9). This figure
    will likely be surpassed in November. For example, the authorities
    reported on November 11 that five militants were killed in the area
    of Serzhen-Yurt in the Shali district. On November 13, they reported
    ten more militants had been killed during special operations in
    Chechnya's Achkhoi-Martan district of Chechnya, and that estimate was
    subsequently increased to 20. Meanwhile, Kadyrov announced that Dokka
    Umarov, the leader of the armed resistance in the North Caucasus,
    might have been among those killed in the operation in Achkhoi-Martan
    (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 13). According to Chechen authorities,
    Dokka Umarov was hiding in the very area where the operation took
    place. It appears that these operations were meant to be a gift timed
    for Medvedev's annual address.

    In Dagestan, one of the largest republics in the North Caucasus,
    authorities have followed the lead of their Chechen colleagues and
    begun setting the houses of militants' relatives on fire. Among the
    houses burned down was that of Emir Seifullah, the leader of Gubden
    jamaat (www.kavkaz.tv, November 19). It is worth noting that the
    Gubden and Khasavyurt jamaats have become the two most active cells
    of Dagestan's Sharia Jamaat. Meanwhile, on November 17, Magomedshamil
    Shahbanov, the son of the head of Buinaksk administration, Mesterlu
    Shahbanov, was kidnapped. Also, the mullah of the local mosque in
    Starye Miatli in Dagestan's Kizilyurt district, Ibragim Abakarov,
    was shot at by unidentified individuals. It is worth noting that
    religious leaders are frequent victims of attacks in the North
    Caucasus. For example, on November 21, a blast rocked the private
    house of the son of the mullah of one of Nazran's mosques. The
    bombing was aimed at pressuring the Sufis -who, according to the
    insurgents, are cooperating with the authorities. That allegation
    cannot be true because the very nature of Sufism practiced in Chechnya,
    Ingushetia, and Dagestan rejects the notion of open cooperation with
    any authorities. The Russian authorities at first skillfully used the
    Sufis in their North Caucasus politics and then simply knocked the
    Sufi element out of the game as Sufism became one of their biggest
    problems of the last two hundred years. The belief that Sufis support
    the authorities is inherently erroneous.

    Reports of insurgent activity are arriving these days even from
    the relatively quiet region of Kabardino-Balkaria. Unidentified
    persons blew up an electrical substation and the "Azau-Krugozor"
    cableway in the Adyl-Su Gorge in Kabardino-Balkaria's Elbrus
    region. Additionally, they fired on the "Azau" stationary road
    police post located at the 54th kilometer of the Prohladnyi-Azau
    federal highway at the Tyrnyauz city exit (www.sk-news.ru, November
    18). Moreover, according to Interfax, an act of terror was prevented
    at the Aushigersk hydroelectric power plant located in the Chereksk
    district of the republic. A weapons cache containing four kilograms
    of plastic explosives, blasting caps and a concentrated charge (SZ-4)
    was found in a forest 200 meters away from the plant. The contents
    of the cache were sent for examination (www.apsny.ge, November 18).

    There have been no recent news reports regarding the Karachai jamaat,
    which suffered a major blow from numerous campaigns by the authorities
    and siloviki in 2006-2007, when many of the jamaat's members were
    killed. However, on November 11, there was a report about a shootout
    in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. An unidentified insurgent opened fire at
    road policemen on duty on Mir Street in the city of Karachaevsk. Three
    policemen were wounded in the attack (www.smol.kp.ru, November 18).

    There has been some turbulence in the Republic of Adygea, where
    President Aslan Thakushinov suggested creating a center of political
    technologies in order to develop an information policy in the sphere
    of terrorism prevention (www.adygeia.kavkaz-uzel.ru, November 8). The
    authorities there intend to pay more attention to the issues of Islam
    and interethnic relations in this North Caucasus region.

    The topic of the Pankisi (a gorge in the northeastern corner of Georgia
    bordering Chechnya and populated by ethnic Chechens) has not been left
    out of the picture in recent days. According to Armenian sources,
    Tbilisi is ready to open its borders for transit between Russia and
    Armenia in exchange for Russia refraining from pressuring Georgia
    politically over the Pankisi Gorge (www.apsny.ge, November 19).

    Generally, the arrival of winter results in a considerable slow
    down in insurgent activity in the North Caucasus. However, this is
    absolutely not the case this year. We may assume that this has to
    do with the new tactics of the armed resistance as well as harsh
    counterterrorist operations being conducted by regional authorities.
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