Chechnya Weekly - Volume VI, Issue 26
July 7, 2005 – Volume VI, Issue 26
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Dagestani militant leader killed following terror attacks
* Assassinations continue in Dagestan
* Chechnya's war grinds on
* Sadulaev reportedly backs unconditional talks
* Basaev enters Olympics fray
* ACPC calls for moral clarity on Chechnya
* Chechen rock concert postponed
* Briefs
DAGESTANI MILITANT LEADER KILLED FOLLOWING TERROR ATTACKS
The level of terrorist violence in Dagestan, which was already high, increased precipitously over the last week with a series of large-scale bombings and assassinations. The authorities, however, scored an apparent success on July 6, when security forces reportedly killed the leader of the republic's armed Islamist insurgency.
Russian Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Novikov told Itar-Tass that Rasul Makasharipov, head of the Jennet organization and its successor group, the Sharia Jamaat, was killed along with a member of the group, Shamil Kebedov, in a special operation on Gazhiev Street in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala. A police source told Interfax that Makasharipov, a.k.a. "Muslim," committed suicide during the commando raid by detonating a grenade. According to the police, relatives of Makasharipov identified his body and his fingerprints matched those on file. In January, the Dagestani branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Makasharipov's body was among a group of gunmen killed in a shootout with security forces, but he later posted a statement on the Kavkazcenter website saying that rumors of his death were "exaggerated" (see Chechnya Weekly, January 26).
The shootout in Makhachkala capped several days of terrorist violence in Dagestan. On July 5, two police officers were killed and at least three injured when a bomb exploded near a police post on Aeroportskoe Shosse (Airport Highway) in Makhachkala's Kirovsky district, which is on the Dagestani capital's northern outskirts. NTV television reported that according to preliminary findings, the bomb was hidden in bushes in front of the post and detonated by remote control. Itar-Tass quoted law-enforcement sources as saying that eyewitnesses had seen two young people run up to the post's stairway and place an object there and run away, soon after which the explosion took place. Earlier in the day, two large bombs were discovered near the Russian Drama Theater in Makhachkala and defused.
The bombing of the police post followed an even larger terrorist attack – the July 1 bombing of a public bathhouse in Makhachkala that killed eleven Russian servicemen. Twenty-seven other people, including nine servicemen and at least 12 civilians, among them an infant, were also wounded in the attack. RIA Novosti reported on July 2 that many of those wounded in the blast were in grave condition. The blast, which took place as three GAZ-53 trucks carrying servicemen pulled up to a public bathhouse in the Dagestani capital, was caused by two explosive devices that had been placed between the hot and cold water pipes leading from a boiler into the bathhouse. The bombs were apparently detonated by remote control. The eleven men who were killed and the servicemen who were wounded in the attack were reportedly commandos from the Federal Interior Ministry's Internal Troops who had been assigned to Dagestan two weeks earlier to carry out special "preventive" operations.
On July 2, the Sharia Jamaat claimed responsibility for the previous day's bombing. The separatist Kavkazcenter website posted a statement by the group that read: "Praise Allah, on 1 July in the city of Shamilkal (formerly Makhachkala) special sub-units of the Islamic Jamaat of Dagestan ‘Sharia' carried out a successful combat operation against the Russian kafir-occupiers from the so-called Moscow spetsnaz. According to our information, 12 kafirs were destroyed and 25 wounded, [and] three trucks were put out commission. We warn all Russian occupiers coming to Dagestan in order to carry out their punitive and combat ‘actions': our land will burn under your feet; you will soak our soil with your blood! The more we destroy you, the closer we will be to our God, and we will do everything possible to give him satisfaction! Don't think that your punitive missions, the forays of your so-called ‘spetsnaz' and ‘squadrons' will pass without a response and consequences for you, your families, wives and children, even if you manage to go back alive. At a session of the Shura of the ‘Sharia' Jamaat of Dagestan, in accordance with the order of [Chechen rebel leader] Emir Abdul-Khalim [Sadulaev] about carrying combat actions over to Russian territory, a decision was taken about landing Dagestani mujahideen on the territory of Moscow for carrying out a series of sabotage operations in the Russian capital under the code-name ‘Stab the Pig in the Heart'. Allah-u-Akhbar! We will come after you in Russia and get you in your own homes! If required, we will attack you and destroy you with your children and wives, as you attack us and murder ours."
Also on July 2, Dagestan's leader, State Council Chairman Magomedali Magomedov, cut short his visit to Kaliningrad, where he was attending a session of the Federal State Council as well as the region's 750th anniversary celebrations. After flying back to Makhachakala, Magomedov visited several hospitals to see some of those wounded in the July 1 attack. Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 4 that the Dagestani leader's visit to the hospitals was his first appearance in public since June 15, when presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak denied rumors that Magomedov was going to lose his job.
On July 4, Mayak radio quoted Magomedov as telling a meeting of the Dagestani Interior Ministry's board that an underground terrorist network was trying to "discredit the republican and federal bodies of power and ultimately to show the whole world that the local authorities are failing to keep the situation under control." Magomedov added that the blame for the attack "should be borne by everyone, including carelessness by unit commanders who have been unable to guarantee the security of their subordinates." Following that meeting, the republic's Interior Minister, Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, announced that the head of the Interior Ministry's Makhachkala department, Yusup Abdullaev, and the heads of the Interior Ministry offices in the capital's Sovietsky, Leninsky and Kirovsky districts had been removed from their posts. Magomedtagirov reported that 68 terrorist attacks had been carried out in Dagestan since the beginning of the year, more than 40 of them in Makhachkala. However, Kommersant on July 5 suggested that the firings were simply aimed at appeasing the federal Interior Ministry, "as it demands decisive measures from the local police." The newspaper predicted that those removed from office would get new high-level jobs.
Nezavisimaya gazeta on July 4 quoted Sergei Arutyunov, head of the North Caucasus section of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Ethnography Institute, as saying that the Chechen and Dagestani "Wahhabis" were "united and in solidarity," that their collaboration was "in good working order" and that their methods were similar – targeting the police, army and bureaucracy. But he also noted that "terrorists" in the North Caucasus were "not necessarily extremists." "You also have here those who are fighting, so to speak, ‘for themselves', who are carrying out blood feuds, because both the Dagestani and the Chechen police continue to engage in mayhem and a considerable proportion of local officials are deeply corrupt," Arutyunov told the newspaper. "And when people encounter acts of mayhem and lawlessness, not seeing any other way, they start to take revenge for injuries inflicted on them. That explains their choice of targets."
ASSASSINATIONS CONTINUE IN DAGESTAN
The Sharia Jamaat also claimed responsibility for the murder of Magomedzagid Varisov. On June 28, Magomedzagid Varisov, a well-known political scientist and journalist, was shot to death as he pulled up to his home in Makhachkala. His driver was wounded while his wife, who was also in the car, was not hurt. Varisov was director of the republic's Center for Strategic Initiatives and Political Technologies and previously worked as head of the information and analysis department of the Dagestani People's Assembly and in the republic's Ministry of Nationalities, External Relations and Information. He also published articles in the mass media that provided – at least in the view of Itar-Tass in a June 28 item – "unbiased assessments of recent developments in Dagestan." On June 29, Kavkazcenter posted a message from the Sharia Jamaat calling Varisov a FSB agent, and saying he was a "mouthpiece of Kremlin propaganda and the Dagestani puppets, one of the active ideologues of Russian infidel power and the fight against establishing Sharia in Dagestan," and stating that he had been "executed." The statement noted that after the Sharia Jamaat claimed responsibility for the murder of Dagestan's minister of nationalities, information and external affairs, Zagir Arukhov (see Chechnya Weekly, May 25), Varisov published an article that dismissed the claim as simply another statement of the kind routinely put out by "all kinds of virtual jamaats." "With the permission of Allah, we destroyed this vermin, finally letting him taste the reality of our words and death," the Sharia Jamaat statement read.
Still, not all observers are convinced that the Islamist underground killed Varisov. Kavkazky Uzel noted on June 29 that several days before his death, Berliner Zeitung had quoted Varisov as saying that the Dagestani authorities were losing control of the situation in the republic. In addition, Rumina Elmurzaeva, a journalist with the Dagestani weekly newspaper Novoe delo, told gazeta.ru that the newspaper had published an analytical piece by Varisov in which he had described the June 4 security sweep targeting ethnic Dagestanis in the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya (see Chechnya Weekly, June 30) as a large-scale "political provocation." The website quoted unnamed Novoe delo employees as saying that Varisov "believed that the events in Borozdinovskaya, and particularly their consequences, which heated up the situation in both regions, were equally advantageous to the authorities in both Chechnya and Dagestan. His position was clear. He bluntly wrote that a majority of politicians are currently not involved in resolving the conflict, but earning political points on the blood of the murdered." Ann Cooper, director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), wrote in the Moscow Times on July 7 that Elmurzaeva told the CPJ that Varisov "had received threats, was being followed and had unsuccessfully sought help from the local police."
On July 4, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura condemned the murder of Magomedzagid Varisov, saying that he "embodied freedom of expression" and calling on authorities to "investigate this crime and bring the perpetrators to justice." The Vienna-based International Press Institute also condemned the murder and expressed concern over the situation in Dagestan, Radio Liberty's Russian service reported on July 6.
The murder of Magomedzagid Varisov was followed by another high-profile assassination. On July 4, Zubair Tataev, a Dagestani People's Assembly deputy and director of the Khasavyurt branch of the Daggaz natural gas company, was shot to death along with his uncle by unidentified assailants three kilometers outside Khasavyurt. Novye izvestia on July 6 quoted sources in the office of the republic's prosecutor as saying that Tataev was most likely killed by competitors who wanted to remove him as Daggaz director. But the newspaper also quoted unnamed associates of Tataev as saying political motives could not be ruled out, given that he was a member of the so-called "Northern Alliance" opposition group that seeks to unseat Magomedali Magomedov as Dagestan's leader.
The Moscow Times on July 6 quoted Mikhail Roshchin, a Caucasus analyst with the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Russian Academy of Science, as saying that the Kremlin's toleration of corruption and abuse of power by the Dagestani authorities in exchange for loyalty – and, by implication, its unwillingness to remove Magomedali Magomedov as Dagestan's leader – "is only postponing an imminent crisis there." At the same time, Roshchin said it was "clear to everyone" that "a domino effect" would occur in Dagestan. "If you touch one piece, everything will fall down," he said.
Meanwhile, Novaya gazeta military correspondent Vyacheslav Izmailov wrote in the bi-weekly newspaper's July 4 edition: "In terms of the number of terrorist attacks aimed at police personnel and internal troops, Dagestan has now surpassed Chechnya. Terrorist acts have become a weekly occurrence."
CHECHNYA'S WAR GRINDS ON
The Defense Ministry's website reported on June 30 that ten Defense Ministry servicemen died in Chechnya in May, Interfax reported. According to the ministry, seven of the deaths were combat-related and three were non-combat. The ministry also reported that 28 soldiers were killed in Chechnya from January to March of this year, and that no soldiers went missing. Chechen rebels, meanwhile, put out considerably higher death tolls for Russian and pro-Russian forces. The separatist Chechenpress news agency reported on June 30 that its forces had killed 21 Russian soldiers and pro-Moscow security force members over June 27-30 alone.
Whatever the accuracy of the rival claims, reports by more independent sources over the last week suggest that Chechnya's guerrilla war is showing few signs of abatement. Citing Interfax, gazeta.ru reported on July 2 that six servicemen were wounded when an improvised explosive device blew up their armored personnel carrier as it passed through an intersection on a road in the Groznensky district. Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 5 that militants killed a Chechen policeman and a member of a Russian military unit during a shootout in the village of Bugaroi in the Itum-Kalinsky district. Law-enforcement sources told the website that the incident took place when militants ambushed an operational-investigative group that was heading to the scene of the murder of Zumsoi village administration chief Abdul-Azim Yangulbekov, which occurred the previous day. Another Chechen policeman was seriously wounded in the incident.
Zumsoi village administration chief Abdul-Azim Yangulbekov was murdered on July 4 by three unknown attackers wearing camouflage who identified themselves as members of one of the Defense Ministry's special services. The head of the regional operational headquarters of the Russian military operation in the North Caucasus, Col.-General Arkady Yedelev, said federal forces had not been in the area at that time. Chechen Security Council Secretary Rudnik Dudaev called the murder of Yangulbekov a carefully planned provocation designed to turn local inhabitants against the federal forces. However, Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 6 that Yangulbekov had openly condemned crimes committed against the village by the military, including its bombardment by six attack helicopters and two jets and the abduction of several inhabitants in a mid-January incident. The Memorial human rights group is demanding an investigation of Yangulbekov's murder and the kidnapping of two Zumsoi villagers – Nasipov Mukhaev and his son Ibishev.
Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 1 that two rebels from the group headed by the field commander Dokku Umarov were killed on the outskirts of Bugaroi during a firefight with a combined group of local security forces and federal troops. A police source told the website that one of their number was killed and several wounded in the battle.
The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD) reported on July 4 that the settlement of Dekhesty in Chechnya's Shatoi district was the target of a missile strike by Russian military helicopters on July 3.
Radio Liberty reported on July 1 that a member of the Defense Ministry's Vostok (East) special forces battalion was killed and three others wounded in a shootout in the Groznensky district with rebels led by the field commander Ali Emirov. Four rebels were reportedly killed in the battle. The Vostok battalion, which is headed by Sulim Yamadaev, attached to the 42nd Motorized Infantry Division and subordinated to the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian armed forces' General Staff, has been implicated in a June 4 security operation in the Chechen village Borozdinovskaya, during which at least one local inhabitant was reportedly killed, eleven abducted and several houses burned down (see Chechnya Weekly, June 30).
Chechen police sources told Interfax on July 3 that separatist fighters had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the home of a local doctor in the village of Shelkovskaya. A police patrol that arrived at the scene was also fired on. No one was hurt in the incidents, but the doctor's house was severely damaged.
Meanwhile, Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 5 that some 1,000 residents of the village of Serzhen-Yurt in Chechnya's Shali district demonstrated in front of the republic's government building in Grozny demanding the release of Shaid Shamaev, the head of the village's administration. Shamaev was kidnapped on July 2, reportedly by members of the Chechen presidential security service, and taken to an unknown location. "As far as we know, Shaid Shamaev was without any basis accused of giving financial aid to the militants," one of the protesters told the website's correspondent. "It would be impossible to think of a more ridiculous and unthinkable accusation. He is known to us as a principled person; moreover, shortly before his death, Chechen leader Akhmad-khadzhi Kadyrov gave him a Volga as a gift."
SADULAEV REPORTEDLY BACKS UNCONDITIONAL TALKS
Kavkazky Uzel reported that on July 5, a group of officials of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) held a press conference in the European Parliament building in Strasbourg. One of the participants, Seilam Bechaev, who is deputy chairman of the ChRI parliament, told the website by telephone from Strasbourg that he and the other participants in the press conference, including separatist presidential representative Umar Khanbiev, said that the rebel movement's new president, Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, remains committed to the policy of his predecessor, Aslan Maskhadov, in support of a peaceful resolution of the Chechen conflict through a dialogue between the warring sides. More explicitly, Bechaev said that Sadulaev is calling on the Kremlin to sit down at the negotiating table and is ready to meet with any official representative of the Russian government at any time without preconditions.
Bechaev's description of Sadulaev's willingness to negotiate without preconditions would, if accurate, appear to represent a significant change in position. In an interview that Sadulaev gave to the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Aman last month (which was also published in the Turkish periodical Milli Gazete), Sadulaev also said he intended to "continue President Maskhadov's course" but described that course as being predicated on the notion that Russia is unwilling to negotiate and that "the war can be stopped only with the help of war." "This is why we will keep fighting for as long as required," Sadulaev said. In a videotaped Chechen-language appeal to the Chechen people posted by the Kavkazcenter website on June 20, Sadulaev indicated that the war would not end even if federal forces were expelled from Chechnya (see Chechnya Weekly, June 22).
BASAEV ENTERS OLYMPICS FRAY
Shamil Basaev recently weighed in on the Olympic Games, warning that the security of athletes participating in the 2012 games could not be guaranteed were Moscow chosen as the Olympic venue. Asked by the Kavkazcenter to comment on Moscow's bid to host the 2012 Olympics, Basaev sent a response electronically, which the separatist website posted on July 5. "We have little interest in the Olympic Games," Basaev wrote. "Our people have altogether different problems. Moreover, only Allah knows what will be in 2012 and whether the world at that time will have any interest in sports generally or whether Rusnya [Basaev's derogatory term for Russia-CW] itself will exist. Today, the war unleashed by Russia continues. Moscow is the capital of a warring state and correspondingly that city is a legitimate zone of military operation for our mujahideen. In this situation, no one can guarantee security for the athletes, even if our units inflict only maximally protective strikes on Moscow. But no one should have any doubt that we have bombed and will bomb Moscow."
Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov called Basaev's comments "nonsense," Interfax reported on July 6. "Neither Basaev nor anybody else will be able to affect security," he said. "There cannot be any threat to holding the Olympic Games in Moscow either from Basaev or from other forces. The peace process, including international sports competitions, will be held regardless of Basaev's wishes. Dogs bark but the caravan moves on." The issue became moot on July 6, when the International Olympic Committee announced that London had been chosen to host the 2012 games.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said on June 30 that Russia's special services had discovered what could be Basaev's archives in a hiding place in the Ingush town of Karabula. According to Shepel, the stash included videos with footage of the bombing of government buildings in Grozny in December 2002, "the preparations for the attack on Nord-Ost" (the Dubrovka theater siege in Moscow) and "facilities" and airports in Moscow. "Because Basaev features in many scenes, it is thought that the tapes and other information carriers found there could be part of Basaev's personal archive," Interfax quoted Shepel as saying. He said that along with videotapes, security agents found "books of extremist content, floppies and discs."
ACPC CALLS FOR MORAL CLARITY ON CHECHNYA
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) on June 30 called on Western governments and observers "to continue to speak with moral clarity on Chechnya during their talks with the Russian Federation," notably on the eve of the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The group said in a press release that it was "deeply concerned" about reports of "human displacement and insecurity" in the aftermath of the June 4 raid in Borozdinovskaya, an ethnic Dagestani village situated in northeastern Chechnya, which was carried out by the Sulim Yamadaev's pro-Moscow Vostok battalion that operates under the Defense Ministry's auspices.
Eleven local men were abducted in the raid on Borozdinovskaya and some 1,200 villagers fled into Dagestan. Russian media reported on June 30 that nearly 1,000 of the villagers who fled Borodinovskaya returned to the village after long negotiations with and guarantees of security from the authorities. President Putin's envoy to the Southern Federal District, Dmitry Kozak, promised that the state would compensate Borozdinovskaya residents whose houses were destroyed in the June 4 raid, RIA Novosti reported.
The ACPC press release also cited comments by Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Dukhvakha Abdurakhmanov that 300,000 Chechens have been killed since the beginning of the first war in 1994, with another 200,000 missing, noting that this would mean that roughly a quarter of Chechnya's pre-war population has been killed as a result of the conflict.
CHECHEN ROCK CONCERT POSTPONED
Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov announced on July 4 that the "Phoenix: Return to Life" rock concert that had been scheduled to take place the following day in Gudermes, the republic's second-biggest city, would be postponed until September because the concert's organizers said military officials had advised them to call it off. The postponement came just three days after ten Interior Ministry troops were killed in a bombing in neighboring Dagestan. Moskovsky komsomlets on July 5 quoted Valery Yedinov, deputy head of the regional operational headquarters for the Russian military operation in the North Caucasus, as saying that "federal security organizations" had asked the Chechen government to cancel or postpone the concert "for security reasons." As the newspaper noted, several days earlier, a convoy of trucks carrying equipment for the concert had been stopped by federal forces in the Ingushetian town of Sleptsovskaya on the administrative border with Chechnya, forcing the trucks' drivers to spend three nights in their vehicles.
The concert, as the Moscow Times noted on July 5, was to have been held "under the watchful eye of the event's security chief, Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov." Moskovsky komsomolets reported that Kadyrov had cabled the Russian military's regional operational headquarters saying that "a rock concert that has been so long in preparation and that Chechen young people have been so eagerly awaiting cannot be canceled under any circumstances." As the newspaper noted, Kadyrov's request was not heeded.
Moskovsky komsomolets put forward two theories as to why the concert was postponed. One is that there was "specific information" that the event was being targeted by terrorists and that even though the kadyrovtsy claimed they had the situation under control, the federal authorities thought it prudent to postpone it. The second theory is that Ramzan Kadyrov's opponents managed to bring about the cancellation of an event that was "supposed to boost the prestige of Chechnya's first vice premier." The newspaper noted that Gudermes had been under the control of the Yamadaevs since 1999 and "without their support, it would be hard to ensure concert security." The Yamadaevs plan to support opponents of Kadyrov in this autumn's Chechen parliamentary elections, Moskovsky komsomolets wrote, and it is "quite possible" that the federal center backed them in an "intrigue" involving the concert's cancellation. It is worth noting that some observers have speculated that the violent security operation on June 4 in the village of Borozdinovskaya, which has been blamed on Sulim Yamadaev's Vostok battalion, may have been carried out by forces loyal to Ramzan Kadyrov with the aim of discrediting the Yamadaevs (see Chechnya Weekly, June 30).
BRIEFS
-- GUARDS REMOVED AT DISPLACED PERSONS' CAMPS
Kavkazky Uzel reported on July 5 that guards had been removed from around temporary settlements for displaced people in Chechnya because of a lack of funds. Residents of the settlements are concerned about this. "We had serious problems even when we had the guards," Masud, a resident of a temporary settlement in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district, told the website. "Now that we don't, the situation would get worse and become more dangerous. The people are seriously worried by this. They are afraid that the number of ‘sweeps', checks, other unsanctioned measures and domestic crimes will increase. According to the refugees, the authorities are doing this on purpose so as to make them leave the temporary settlements as soon as possible." A Chechen migration service official told Kavkazky Uzel that his office urged the occupants of the settlements to recruit their own guards and offered to pay them 2,000 rubles (about $69) each per month, but that they refused.
-- REBELS SEE ALLY IN TAIWAN
Chinese President Hu Jintao said he and President Vladimir Putin discussed such important issues as Taiwan and Chechnya during their July 1 talks in Moscow, Itar-Tass reported. "The parties boosted mutual support in such issues as the Taiwan and Chechen issues, which concern our vital interests," Hu said during a news conference after the talks. Noting the meeting between the Russian and Chinese leaders, and the increasingly close relations between their two governments, the Chechen separatist Kavkazcenter website commented on July 5: "The Chechens in such a geopolitical alignment will have to promptly normalize relations with its unexpected strategic ally, Taiwan, and prepare for war against China."
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