From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 1/4/2007 12:32 PM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 1
January 4, 2007
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Dagestani Cops and a Cleric Targeted
* Chechen Authorities Say They Averted New Year’s Eve Attacks
* Security Forces and Rebels Shoot It Out in Cherkessk
* Briefs
* The Illusion of Victory: Kremlin Proxies Mount Year-End Propaganda Drive
By Andrei Smirnov
---------------------------------------------------------------------DAGESTANI COPS AND A CLERIC TARGETED
On January 3, a shootout between gunmen and police in the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala left a police officer and two local residents wounded and one gunman dead. Citing Dagestan’s Interior Ministry, ITAR-TASS reported that the incident took place around 5PM Moscow time on Ganidov Prospekt in Makhachkala, when police tried to stop a Zhiguli car for a document check and someone inside the vehicle fired on them. One of the gunmen was killed in the ensuing gun battle while the three others in the car managed to escape. One of the escaping gunmen may have been wounded. Interfax quoted a Makhachkala police official as saying that two local residents were slightly injured in the gunfight and that the life of the wounded policeman, shot in the leg, was not in danger.
RIA Novosti reported on January 4 that a local Makhachkala resident had been arrested after weapons and ammunition were discovered in his car. The news agency quoted a Dagestani Interior Ministry source as saying that police had found an RPG-18 grenade launcher, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Makarov pistol, a silencer and more than 400 cartridges in the car’s trunk. According to the source, police also found a notebook containing the license plate numbers of cars belonging to police personnel along with the policemen’s home addresses.
The January 3 shooting incident came just several days after two police officers were murdered in separate incidents in the Dagestani capital. One of the murders took place on New Year’s Eve. Interfax, on January 1, quoted the head of the Makhachkala police department’s press service, Snezhan Topuzliev, as saying that a sergeant from the 2nd regiment of the Makhachkala police department’s patrol-sentry service, Dzhalkhan Bairamov, was shot to death by unknown attackers shortly before 11PM on December 31 after leaving a police post near the home of a district police chief to go to a store. According to Topuzliev, Bairamov died after being shot six times with a pistol. “The criminals took a submachine gun from the dead man,” he said. Bairamov left behind a wife and two children. Another Makhachkala police source told Interfax that when New Year’s revelers in Makhachkala began to set off firecrackers, unknown attackers “killed a senior sergeant of the patrol-sentry service who was guarding the home of the head of one of the district police offices, after which they escaped from the scene of the crime.”
Kavkazky Uzel reported on December 31 that Magomed Gadzhimagomedov, a police captain and member of the Makhachkala police department’s extra-departmental protection directorate, was killed in a drive-by shooting in the Dagestani capital on the evening of December 30. Interfax, citing the Makhachkala police department’s press service, reported that Gadzhimagomedov was waiting for a taxi on a sidewalk in Makhachkala and holding packages containing food and New Year’s gifts for children when someone in a passing car fired a Makarov pistol at him from a point-blank range. According to ITAR-TASS, the incident took place in a busy area. “It cannot be ruled out that the criminals did not know the policeman, but shot him simply because he was in uniform,” the news agency reported. “There are also grounds to assume that members of the extremist underground, whose backbone was destroyed this year [2006], are connected to this murder.”
Citing Interfax, Kavkazky Uzel reported on December 29 that the body of Magomed Saidmagomedov, the imam of a mosque located on Ulitsa Abrikosovaya in Mackhachkala, was found with gunshot wounds inside the mosque that morning. According to the Makhachkala police department’s press service, the imam was murdered sometime after morning prayers.
Kavkaz Center reported that the Ulitsa Abrikosovaya mosque was where officers from the Sovietsky district police department had detained a young man when the imam tipped them off after the Friday prayer on December 8. “It later emerged that the imam did not like the way the young man prayed,” the Chechen rebel website reported. “He called the police and said that he [the young man] was probably a ‘Wahhabi.’ The man, identified as Nadyr Magomedov, died after being subjected to brutal torture on December 9. The condition of his body showed how brutally he had been tortured. Shocked by the brutality of the police, a large number of people, including relatives, neighbors and acquaintances, staged a rally outside the office of the Sovietsky district police department on December 11, demanding an explanation for the killing.”
On December 19, the head of the education department of Dagestan’s Untsukulsky district, Magomed Ibragimov, was killed when an explosion destroyed his car. According to police, Ibragimov’s Niva automobile blew up in the village of Untsukul, killing him instantly. ITAR-TASS reported that “unknown persons” had placed an explosive device in the car and that law-enforcement bodies did not rule out that the attack was connected to his professional activities.
While it is not certain that all of the latest killings were the work of Dagestan’s Islamic militants, the police have been the main targets of the radicals, who, while suffering setbacks last year, reportedly remain active. Indeed, Major-General Sergei Solodovnikov, deputy head of the Russian Interior Ministry’s Main Directorate for the Southern Federal District, conceded in October 2006 that “four bandit groups” continued to operate in Dagestan’s mountainous areas near the border with Azerbaijan and in the districts of Buinaksk, Makhachkala and Khasavyurt. Solodovnikov identified Rappani Khalilov, who was a close associate of the late Shamil Basaev, as the Dagestani rebel network’s leader, and stressed that the social and economic situation in the republic precluded a complete victory over the rebels (Chechnya Weekly, November 2, 2006). Solodovnikov’s comments followed the appearance of a video by leaders of the Sharia Jamaat, the underground Islamist group that killed dozens of Dagestani police officers over past years, threatening both Dagestani policemen and Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov. The Sharia Jamaat leaders also appealed to the republic’s Muslims for support (Chechnya Weekly, October 26, 2006).
Earlier, at the start of 2006, the Sharia Jamaat had issued a statement warning “all police and other hypocrites” to “fear Allah and revenge by Muslims.” The group also addressed Muslims who had not joined its ranks, stating that “the destruction of the opponents of Sharia is a forced but necessary measure prescribed by the Koran and the Sunnah” and that “the war against the infidel will continue until all power belongs to Allah” (Chechnya Weekly, January 12, 2006). A short time later, the Sharia Jamaat issued a statement denouncing Dagestan’s Spiritual Board of Muslims, which represents the republic’s official Muslim clergy, as hypocrites who have long been “carrying out a war against the Koran” (Chechnya Weekly, January 26, 2006).
Dagestani President Mukhu Aliev, for his part, claimed in an interview with Ekho Moskvy on December 27 that his administration had gained the upper hand in its fight against Islamic militants during 2006. “This year, I believe, we have managed to radically change the situation in our fight against religious extremism and terrorism in the republic,” he told the radio station. “Various opinion polls conducted by people from Moscow, from the Southern Federal District, confirm this. [These are] not only our observations and statistics. There have been 66% fewer terrorist acts. There have also been fewer people and policemen wounded.” Aliev said that Dagestani authorities had managed to “shift the accent” in the fight against “Wahhabis” from “the prominent use of force to preventive measures.” He added: “We respect all religions in Dagestan – Islam, Christianity and Judaism. They co-exist and cooperate normally. We support traditional Islam...The clergy has made a great contribution to this.”
Aliev said that many young people have been lured into the ranks of the radical Muslims by promises of a better life. “Our task is to prevent this extremism, to pay more attention to young people, to create jobs,” Aliev said. “We respect Islam, we have supported Dagestan’s traditional Islamic beliefs, but Dagestan is a secular republic, it must not go along the path of Islamization.”
CHECHEN AUTHORITIES SAY THEY AVERTED NEW YEAR’S EVE ATTACKS
Interfax, citing a Chechen Interior Ministry source, reported on December 31 that two militants had surrendered in Chechnya. According to the news agency, one of the two, a resident of the Groznensky district village of Tolstoi-Yurt, handed over a Kalashnikov assault rife, while the other claimed he had been involved in buying food supplies for rebels. The same Chechen Interior Ministry source told Interfax that a major cache of explosive materials had been discovered in Grozny’s Zavodsky district. According to the source, the cache included a gas container filled with a grey powdery substance and fitted with an electronic detonator as well as two metal tubes stuffed with explosives connected to detonators.
On December 29, Interfax reported that Chechen security forces averted a major terrorist act in Grozny, seizing 320 kilograms of TNT. “As a result of a tip-off about preparations for large-scale terrorist acts in the republic’s capital on New Year’s Eve, an active member of illegal armed formations, Aslan Kurkaev, born in 1979, has been arrested,” the news agency quoted a Chechen Interior Ministry source as saying. “The rebel confessed that he had been involved in preparing a terrorist act in Grozny in the holiday period. As a result of the tip-off, explosives equal to 320 kilograms of TNT were found under the bridge across the Sunzha River.” Interfax reported on December 28 that bomb threats made that day against Grozny’s hospitals No. 4 and No. 9 turned out to be false alarms. The facilities were evacuated and searched by a military engineer unit.
The Chechen rebel Kavkaz Center website reported on December 27 that a “mobile mujahideen unit from Amir Musa’s unit” had fired “improvised rocket launchers” at the Russian military base at Khankala, outside of Grozny. The website claimed there were dead and wounded among Russian military personnel at the base but that the Russian side had “reported nothing about the attack.” Kavkaz Center also claimed that rebels had attacked a Russian military post near the village of Duba-Yurt, killing four Russian soldiers while losing two of their own.
The Chechen National Salvation Committee reported that two people were killed and one wounded when a Russian helicopter gunship opened fire on a bonfire in a forest in Chechnya’s Achkoi-Martan district on the night of December 19-20. According to the Nazran-based Chechen human rights NGO, the bonfire was made by local villagers who were gathering firewood. A criminal investigation into the incident has been launched, the group’s website reported. Kavkazky Uzel, citing the NGO, reported on December 28 that a wooded area near the settlement of Avtury in Chechnya’s Shali district was shelled by artillery on December 24.
The Chechen National Salvation Committee reported on its website on December 31 that an inhabitant of the village of Tangi-Chu in Chechnya’s Urus-Martan district, Bulat Magomadov, was abducted from his home by unidentified “representatives of Russian force structures” on the night of December 15-16. Magomadov’s body was found in Grozny’s Oktyabrsky district two days after his abduction bearing bullet holes and signs of torture. According to the committee, Magomadov worked several years ago as a shepherd in Rostov Oblast, where he was arrested for murder, sentenced to five years in prison and freed after serving three years of the sentence. The committee also reported that Musa Paikhaev was kidnapped from his home in the village of Alkhan-Yurt, also located in Urus-Martan, on December 18. “Representatives of a Russian force agency that has not been identified, numbering 20 people, drove up to the Paikhaevs’ home in white Gazel and Niva automobiles without license plates and, bursting into the house, put everyone who was there on the floor,” the committee’s website reported. “Along with adults, there were also young children, aged four to six, in the house. The servicemen in masks tied together the elder Paikhaev son and his mother-in-law. Without explaining the reason for such an unexpected visit, and hurling unprintable abuse, they took Musa Paikhaev outside in bare feet, without giving him a chance to get dressed, and drove him off in an unknown direction.”
The Chechen National Salvation Committee reported on its website on December 27 that a 46-year-old man named Akhmadov Albeik was abducted from the Chechen settlement of Assinovskaya on December 19 by unidentified people in camouflage.
Radio Liberty, on December 29, quoted Dmitry Grushkin of the Memorial human rights group as saying that 184 people were kidnapped in Chechnya during 2006, 11 of whom were found dead. As Memorial noted, those statistics were based on the monitoring of only one-third of the republic, meaning that the total number of abductions in Chechnya last year may have been higher.
SECURITY FORCES AND REBELS SHOOT IT OUT IN CHERKESSK
One rebel was killed and two detained on December 25 during a gunfight with security forces in Cherkessk, the capital of Karachaevo-Cherkessk, on December 25. The Associated Press reported that authorities surrounded the five-story apartment building where the four alleged militants were believed to be hiding and opened fire with guns, grenades, armored vehicles and flamethrowers. According to the news agency, nearby streets were cordoned off and a neighborhood school was closed, but not all residents of the building were evacuated. Anna Lyzina, spokeswoman for the regional branch of the Federal Security Service (FSB), said that the suspected militants were believed to belong to a group that was involved in killing local police officers.
However, making matters murkier, an anonymous Interior Ministry source told the AP that the militants were hiding in an apartment belonging to a key figure in the case involving the 2004 murder of seven Karachaevo-Cherkessia businessmen, which sparked mass protests against the republic’s president, Mustafa Batdyev, whose former son-in-law, Ali Kaitov, was charged with murder in the case. Protesters accused Batdyev of a cover-up. A court found Kaitov guilty of the murders on December 27 and sentenced him to 17 years in prison.
ITAR-TASS named the gunman killed in the shootout as Timur Tokov, a follower of Achmez Gochiyaev, the militant who was put on Russia’s wanted list for allegedly organizing the bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999, which killed 352 people. As Newsru.com noted on December 25, Gochiyaev denied involvement in those terrorist acts in a letter that was made public by former FSB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko in 2002. In the letter, Gochiyaev also denied having any links to either Chechen rebel field commander Shamil Basaev or Khattab, the Saudi-born Chechen rebel field commander. Khattab was killed in 2002, while both Basaev and Litvinenko were killed in 2006.
BRIEFS
- SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS KULAEV’S LIFE SENTENCE
On December 26, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld a life sentence for Nur-Pashi Kulaev, the only militant known to have survived the 2004 Beslan school siege that killed more than 300 people. As the Associated Press noted, the court rejected appeals from the lawyers for Kulaev, who was convicted in May by a court in southern Russia, as well as from the relatives of the victims. Ella Kesaeva, the head of the Voice of Beslan group of victims’ relatives, told Ekho Moskvy radio that Kulaev’s trial failed to properly investigate the circumstances of the raid and the botched rescue efforts. She also indicated that the injured parties would appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
- PARLIAMENTARY BESLAN COMMISSION CLEARS SILOVIKI
Aleksandr Torshin, head of the Russian parliamentary commission investigating the Beslan school siege, delivered the commission’s findings to the Federation Council on December 22. As Bloomberg News reported, the commission named Aslan Maskhadov, Shamil Basaev and Kuwaiti militant Abu Dzeit as the planners of the school seizure, and said it was the hostage-takers, not the Russian security forces surrounding the school, that set off the explosions that resulted in more than 300 deaths. “One member of the band detonated a homemade device according to a pre-arranged plan,” Torshin asserted. A report on the Beslan tragedy prepared by Yuri Savelyev, a State Duma deputy with the nationalist Rodina (Motherland) party and an explosives expert, found that federal troops fired grenades into Beslan’s School No. 1 on September 3, 2004 while hostages were still inside, and that the commandos’ actions may have prompted the bloody firefight that killed more than 300 hostages (Chechnya Weekly, June 1, 2006). Torshin’s commission also insisted that only 32 terrorists took part in the school seizure, while Savelyev estimated that 56-78 terrorists were involved. Torshin’s report criticized the performance of the security services before the siege, saying the militants were in the area of Beslan for almost a week, moving “openly around the village with weapons in their hands” but that “neither the special services nor the law-enforcement agencies detected them.”
- ALKHANOV SAYS HE’S READY TO TALK TO EXILED REBELS