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Truck Bomb Signals Trouble On Russia's Southern Flank

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  • Truck Bomb Signals Trouble On Russia's Southern Flank

    TRUCK BOMB SIGNALS TROUBLE ON RUSSIA'S SOUTHERN FLANK

    Christian Science Monitor
    Aug17, 2009

    Emergency workers look through debris at a destroyed police station
    in Nazran, Ingushetia, Russia, Monday. A suicide bomber exploded a
    truck at a police station in Russia's restive North Caucasus Monday,
    killing at least 20 people and wounding 60 others, officials said.

    (Musa Sadulayev/AP) Photo

    Truck bomb signals trouble on Russia's southern flank A week of
    regional violence climaxed Monday in Ingushetia when a suicide bomber
    blew a hole in a heavily fortified police headquarters, killing at
    least 20.

    By Fred Weir | Correspondent 08.17.09

    http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews /2009/08/17/truck-bomb-signals-trouble-on-russias- southern-flank/

    A week of extremist attacks on Russia's seething southern flank
    climaxed Monday with a suicide truck bombing in Ingushetia that killed
    at least 20 and injured scores outside a police station in the tiny
    republic's main city, Nazran.

    The resulting explosion triggered a "raging fire" that destroyed a
    weapons room, incinerated nearby cars, and damaged nearby apartment
    buildings, according to an Associated Press (AP) report from Nazran. It
    was one of the deadliest attacks in the region in years, the AP said.

    Violence by Islamist insurgents, once confined mainly to separatist
    Chechnya, has gradually spread throughout much of Russia's
    northern Caucasus, leaving Russian authorities increasingly unable
    to guarantee order, or even protect pro-Moscow officials, in the
    mainly Muslim region. (See map.) For Moscow, the stakes are huge. The
    northern Caucasus region is Russia's gateway to the energy-rich and
    strategically vital southern Caucasus, which includes the former
    Soviet nations of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.

    Worsening violence in the area could seriously disrupt the planned 2014
    Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi, into which former President Vladimir
    Putin invested about $12 billion along with his own personal prestige.

    Concerns Moscow could lose control Long-simmering concerns that Moscow
    could lose control in the volatile northern Caucasus, where Chechen
    rebels have waged a persistent insurgency since 1991, are spiking
    again given the past week of attacks.

    Monday's bombing in Ingushetia, which blew a huge hole in Nazran's
    fortified police headquarters, was reminiscent of attacks carried out
    by Chechen rebels at the height of that insurgency against Russian
    troops in the early days of Mr. Putin's 2000-08 term.

    Over the weekend, at least two gun battles between police and
    separatist insurgents in Chechnya itself left about a dozen people
    dead and made the Kremlin's boast of restoring order in that troubled
    republic look increasingly hollow.

    In nearby Dagestan, a multiethnic mountain republic on the Caspian Sea,
    insurgent snipers killed two policemen in separate attacks on Saturday.

    Last week, insurgents killed four police officers at a checkpoint in
    Buinaksk, near Dagestan's border with Chechnya.

    And in Ingushetia, where violence has been spiking in recent months,
    three gunmen shot an killed a female fortune-teller this past
    Thursday. Occultists are a common target of Islamist extremists, who
    regard them as blasphemers, occording to Russian press reports. The
    previous day, insurgents assassinated Ingushetia's construction
    minister in his own heavily guarded office.

    Cracks in Moscow's strategy to contain Caucasus Russia's northern
    Caucasus includes eight republics, six of which are populated mainly
    by Muslims, that were conquered and incorporated into the Russian
    Empire in the 19th century.

    Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia fought two savage
    wars to regain control of separatist Chechnya.

    The Kremlin seemed to find a winning formula in handing power to a
    local pro-Moscow strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, who pacified the republic
    by co-opting former rebels into his personal security corps and
    allegedly launching a wave of terror to suppress any dissent against
    his rule.

    Several human rights activists who attempted to report on Mr. Kadyrov's
    methods have been killed in recent months.

    But attempts to install similarly effective local bosses in other
    republics, notably Ingushetia, have proven less successful.

    In June, Ingushetia's recently appointed president, Yunus-Bek
    Yevkurov, received grave injuries in a car-bombing, from which he is
    still recovering. Mr. Yevkurov blamed Monday's attack on militants
    retaliating against heightened security measures along the border
    with Chechnya, reported the Associated Press.

    "It was an attempt to stablize the situation
    and sow panic," said the president in a statement.
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