From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 9/6/2007 2:19 PM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 34
September 6, 2007

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Ingushetia Takes Chechnya’s Place as the North Caucasus Hot Spot
* Commentators See Ingushetia as a “Failed State” Where an Uprising Could Occur…
* …While Ingushetian and Federal Officials Say: “Crisis? What Crisis?”
* Policemen and a Senior Rebel Killed in Chechnya
* Briefs
* Zyazikov's Declining Political Support
By Andrei Smirnov
* Fear of Large-Scale Rebel Attack Grips Grozny
By Andrei Smirnov
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Ingushetia Takes Chechnya’s Place as the North Caucasus Hot Spot

Developments in Ingushetia over the last several weeks have added to its growing reputation as the new “goryachaya tochka,” or hot spot, in the North Caucasus. Three Russian Interior Ministry troops were wounded on the evening of September 4 when unidentified attackers fired a grenade launcher at a military unit located in the republic’s Malgobek district and escaped in an UAZ automobile. Kavkazky Uzel on September 5 quoted doctors as saying that the servicemen’s wounds were not life threatening. On August 31, a bomb blast in Nazran, Ingushetia’s largest city, killed three policemen and injured two. An official of the republic’s prosecutor’s office told Reuters that the incident took place when police patrolling in a jeep were dispatched to check on reports that a Lada car packed with explosives was parked next to the cultural center in central Nazran. “When police approached the Lada, it blew up,” the official told the news agency. “There was virtually nothing left of the Lada car.” Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry, however, insisted that the explosion was an accident that took place when a police jeep collided with the Lada and a gas canister in the latter exploded.

On the evening of August 30, gunmen in the Ingush town of Karabulak shot to death Mikhail Draganchuk, the husband of a local ethnic Russian teacher, Vera Draganchuk, and their two sons, Anatoly, 24, and Denis, 20, in their home. The Regnum news agency, citing Russian state television’s First Channel, reported on August 31 that Denis Draganchuk died later in a local hospital. Vera Draganchuk was in another room of the house at the time of the shooting and was not hurt. The attack was similar to one that took place in the Ingush village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya on July 16, when Lyudmila Terekhina, a 55-year-old ethnic Russian teacher, and her son and daughter, both of them university students, were shot to death by unknown gunmen in their home. On July 18, ten people were wounded when a bomb detonated during the funeral for Lyudmila Terekhina and her two children, which was held at a cemetery in Ordzhonikidzevskaya (Chechnya Weekly, July 19).

Russian news agencies reported on September 3 that the gunman suspected of killing Mikhail Draganchuk and his sons was himself killed during a special operation in Karabulak on September 2. A military source told Interfax that the slain militant was Apti Dolakov, “an adherent of Wahhabism” born in 1986. “He is suspected of being a member of a terrorist group which killed a Russian family and wounded two Dagestani shepherds,” the source said, adding that a grenade was confiscated from the slain militant. The source said that a relative of the slain militant, who was also an “adherent of Wahhabism” and believed to belong to an illegal armed group, was detained. Interfax also quoted the source as saying that several law-enforcement agencies were involved in the special operation against the two militants and that “uncoordinated actions of law enforcement agencies resulted in a shooting.” The source added: “Relevant measures are being taken to prevent such uncoordinated actions in the activity of law-enforcement agencies involved in searching for and eliminating militants in the region.”

Kommersant on September 4 quoted Karabulak residents and human rights activists who gave a version of what happened during the September 2 special operation that differed significantly from the official one. According to the newspaper, a group of Federal Security Service (FSB) spetsnaz commandos arrived in Karabulak on September 2 at five in the afternoon in two Gazel microbuses, one of which went to a gaming machine arcade where the two alleged militants were believed to be. Around ten armed commandos in masks got out of the vehicle and started to surround the arcade. “However, the operation did not get off the ground: upon seeing the men with submachine guns, several young people ran out of the arcade into the street and scattered,” Kommersant wrote. “Then the chekists opened fire.” As Kommersant was told by the Ingush branch of the Memorial human rights group, whose staffers interviewed eyewitnesses to the special operation, “the FSB [commandos] fired despite the fact that it was a Sunday and there were apartment buildings around where children were playing in the yard and peaceful people were walking.” The newspaper reported that 21-year-old Apti Dolakov, who it described as a local resident, was among the youths who ran out of the arcade before he was fatally wounded. Another local resident who had fled from the arcade, 23-year-old Iles Dolgiev, was captured nearby and was pushed by the FSB commandos into the Gazel microbus with a bag over his head.

According to Kommersant, the special operation almost ended in a shootout between the FSB commandos and local police when a group of local policeman and members of the republic’s OMON police commando unit, which is based near Karabulak, heard shooting from the special operation and arrived at the scene. The FSB had not given the local police advance warning of the special operation, fearing possible leaks, and as a result the appearance of the masked FSB commandos firing weapons was an “unpleasant surprise” for the local law-enforcers, who demanded that the FSB commandos present identification. The latter refused and demanded that the local law-enforcers get out of the way and not “disturb the work of the federal special services.” The local police officers backed down and left the scene, but the OMON commandos refused to back down and aimed their weapons at the FSB commandos, who were ultimately forced to go to the local police quarters. However, the FSB commandos were freed after twenty minutes, when three armored personnel carriers with another ten FSB spetsnaz arrived at the scene.

Ingushetia’s chief prosecutor, Yury Turygin, said the FSB commandos’ actions were justified. The Karabulak prosecutor’s office launched a criminal case based on charges of infringement on the life of law-enforcement personnel and illegal weapons’ possession against the slain and captured alleged militants. The office claimed that the slain militant, Apti Dolakov, had tried to throw an F-1 grenade at the FSB commandos, forcing them to use their weapons. The FSB also claimed that Dolakov and Dolgiev were “Wahhabis” and active members of the “Karabulak underground” who had been involved not only in the murder of schoolteacher Vera Draganchuk’s husband and two sons, but also a number of other attacks carried out in the republic in August and early September.

However, according to Kommersant, the local branch of Memorial is certain that Iles Dolgiev had nothing to do with the murder of schoolteacher Vera Draganchuk’s family and that the FSB is fabricating a case against him. “One of the chekists went up to the [wounded but] still living Apti Dolakov and shot him in the head, and then placed a grenade next to him,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed Memorial staffer as saying. “That is being told by many eyewitnesses … How is it possible after that to believe what the FSB [officers] are saying?” According to Kommersant, the independent Ingushetiya.ru website has already posted an open letter from Karabulak residents calling on republican prosecutor Yury Turygin to resign over the extra-judicial killing of Apti Dolakov. The newspaper also quoted a source in the republican prosecutor’s office as saying that Dolgiev had nothing to do with the murder of Vera Draganchuk’s family.

France’s Le Monde reported on September 3 that a similar incident took place on August 29 at a market near Nazran, when republican OMON killed 18-year-old Islam Garakoev, who the police commandos claimed was an armed terrorist. However, the website quoted a Radio Liberty correspondent on the scene as saying that, according to eyewitnesses, Garakoev was shot at point blank range and had not offered any resistance, and that the OMON commandos had not allowed anyone to come to his aid. According to Le Monde, a crowd gathered around the morgue where Garakoev’s body was taken and demanded the resignation of Ingushetia’s president, Marat Zyazikov.

Le Monde quoted Magomed Mutsulgov of the non-governmental organization “Macher” as saying that police brutality is the cause of the chaos in Ingushetia. “The law-enforcement bodies and military are responsible for numerous human rights violations that remain completely unpunished,” he said.

Commentators See Ingushetia as a “Failed State” Where an Uprising Could Occur…

The incident in Karabulak “might have ended in a shootout” between local law-enforcers and the FSB commandos who killed Apti Dolakov and detained Iles Dolgiev “had Ingush Interior Minister Musa Medov not ordered that the killers be released,” wrote commentator Yulia Latynina in a column published in the Moscow Times on September 5. “Later, the local prosecutor explained that the shooting had been the ‘liquidation of an insurgent.’ This kind of ‘liquidation’ has become infamous of late. In Ingushetia in early August, insurgents were blamed for the shooting deaths of ethnic Russian schoolteacher Lyudmila Terekhina and her daughter. The case was solved and the two murderers apprehended almost overnight. They were federal contract soldiers, one Russian and the other Ossetian, who had visited Terekhina’s daughter on the eve of the murder. A witness identified the assailants by their voices. The local police official who ordered the soldiers’ arrest was then shot dead on August 11. No doubt, some of the people killed by federal troops were insurgents. But in the case of Terekhina’s killers, it is not as easy to tell.”

According to Latynina, the situation in Ingushetia “worsened dramatically” in March following the abduction of Uruskhan Zyazikov, an uncle of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and the father of his personal security chief (Chechnya Weekly, March 29). “This prompted the authorities to loose a wave of terror on their own citizens, which was met with terror as a response,” Latynina wrote. “As early as June, it was clear that the region was moving toward a catastrophe. That was when villagers in Surkhakhi used force to free a fellow villager being held by federal troops. (By this point, federal troops were already moving around the republic in groups of no fewer than three armored personnel carriers and had so thoroughly entrenched themselves in the villages that they had even put up outhouses in the cemeteries.) It had also become clear that Zyazikov had lost control of both the general population and the local elites: In a secret ballot, a majority of United Russia members voted to dump him as party head in Ingushetia.”

Latynina concluded that an “uprising” is possible in Ingushetia. “It is one thing when villagers take on heavily armed federal soldiers to free a compatriot - and that particular village has a reputation for militancy - but altogether another when federal soldiers are prepared to shoot local police,” she wrote. “The next step could well be an uprising, with not much needed to touch it off. In a republic as small as Ingushetia, the insurgents would not be likely to come out as winners. Regardless of the winner, rivers of blood would likely flow before it was over.”

Kavkazky Uzel on September 1 quoted Sergei Markedonov, head of the International Relations department at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, as telling Radio Liberty that Ingushetia has become a kind of mini “failed state,” and that the situation in the republic is the result of the collapse of state power. “It is necessary to talk not about the collapse of state power at the regional level, although the regional government is also making quite a few mistakes,” he said. “It is more the collapse of overall federal policy, because Ingushetia is not an object of serious concern on the part of the federal center. Many problems that have accumulated during the whole post-Soviet period, since the moment of Ingushetia’s formation, are not being solved … It is the problem of those who have been forcibly relocated from the Prigorodny district [of North Ossetia]…It is the problem of the relationship between the various currents of Islam: many people are opposing the Spiritual Board of Muslims [of Ingushetia], declaring themselves Wahhabis without any kind of serious critique. It is the relationship with North Ossetia in general, and the relationship with Chechnya. And it is the issue of returning the Russian population to the republic and the problem of the small number of Russians who remain there.”

Markedonov added: “All of these problems are not being solved; they are not being viewed conceptually. Unfortunately, all of the actions of the authorities, above all the federal ones, are built on the reaction principle. There is a terrorist act, an attack has taken place, and measures of the military-police kind are taken belatedly. Take the most recent measures – the introduction of an additional contingent of troops on Ingushetia’s territory. But the problem isn’t one of introducing troops. I was in Ingushetia; I mixed with the servicemen who are serving with the regiment in Troitskoye. The soldiers are in a ghetto-like situation. It is necessary to foster respect for the person in uniform, to foster in Ingushetia an understanding that it is part of Russia.”

…While Ingushetian and Federal Officials Say: “Crisis? What Crisis?”

The reaction of Ingushetia’s leadership to the worsening security situation in the republic has displayed what might euphemistically be called an unwillingness to face reality. Newsru.com on September 3 reported that during a press conference in Moscow, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov accused the Russian media of disseminating false and alarmist information about the situation in the republic. “It is a real information war,” he said. “The situation in Ingushetia is getting better and, of course, there are some who do not like this, especially certain forces acting in our country and abroad.”

Zyazikov’s comments were echoed by Ingushetia’s vice premier in charge of security affairs, Bashir Aushev, who said on September 5 that external forces interested in destabilizing the republic were behind the recent attacks on Ingush law-enforcement personnel. The attacks, Aushev told Interfax, should be viewed as “the reaction of criminals to the energizing of the work of the law-enforcement bodies.”

Perhaps even more surreal were the comments of Leonid Slutsky, the deputy head of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, who on September 5 said of the situation in Ingushetia: “The situation in the republic is normalizing, Ingushetia is actively developing, the economy is strengthening, [and] new enterprises are opening.” According to ITAR-Tass, Slutsky said Ingushetia’s construction industry is developing particularly quickly. “One can say that the republic is one big construction site,” he said.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov was less sanguine about the situation in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya. “The operational situation in the neighboring republic has heated up somewhat as of late; it’s a pity, but it’s a fact,” Newsru.com on September 3 quoted Kadyrov as saying. “The Chechen Republic has accumulated significant experience in the fight against international terrorism, and the republic’s power structures are ready to render aid to fraternal Ingushetia.” It is worth noting that some observers believe Kadyrov is seeking to impose a political merger on Ingushetia (Chechnya Weekly, June 14 and May 24).

Policemen and a Senior Rebel Killed in Chechnya

Newsru.com reported on September 6 that four policemen in Chechnya were killed in two separate shooting incidents. In one of the attacks, two Interior Ministry Internal Troops servicemen died after they were targeted first by a bomb blast and then by gunfire. There was no indication of exactly where the incident took place. The second attack took place in the Naursk district village of Alpatovo, where a police unit from the Republic of Buryatia came under fire and two servicemen were killed.

Quoting Chechnya’s Interior Ministry, the Associated Press reported on September 4 that a clash between security forces and gunmen who attacked a school and house in the village of Gukhoi in southern Chechnya killed one policeman and wounded four others. The ministry said the attack was mounted by about five gunmen armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons and that the gunmen were not apprehended.

Chechnya’s Interior Ministry reported on August 24 that the shootout in Grozny left two policemen and Rustam Basaev, a high-placed associate of rebel leader Doku Umarov, dead. As quoted by the Moscow Times on August 27, the ministry said that officers had stopped a suspicious man on a street in Grozny on the evening of August 23 to check his documents when the man opened fire on them with a pistol. The man then fled to a nearby apartment building, which police then surrounded. Two officers and the suspect were killed in the ensuing shootout. Basaev’s death was confirmed by the separatist Kavkaz-Center website.

Briefs

- Gas Pipeline Hit in Kabardino-Balkaria

An explosion near the village of Elbrus in Kabardino-Balkaria put a gas pipeline out of commission, Kavkazky Uzel reported on September 6. The website quoted an unnamed source in the press center of the Southern Federal District branch of the federal Emergency Situations Ministry as saying that that preliminary data suggested the blast was caused by an explosive device. Kavkazky Uzel on September 5 quoted an “informed source” as saying that an explosion that took place on August 31 in the Kabardino-Balkarian city of Tyrnyauz was aimed at the local police headquarters. The blast caused no damage, nor was anybody hurt in the explosion.

- Militant Killed in Karachaevo-Cherkessia

The Federal Security Service (FSB) reported on September 5 that the rebel leader in the republic, identified as Abubakar, was killed. “On 5 September 2007, the Russian Federation FSB, during planned reconnaissance actions on the Russian-Georgian section of the state border in the Karachaevo-Cherkessia border guard detachment’s zone of responsibility, discovered two armed citizens who were moving in from the territory of the neighboring state (Georgia),” the FSB said in a statement. “During an attempt to detain them, the criminals put up fierce resistance and were destroyed.” One of the two alleged militants was identified as Rustan Ionov, a resident of the village of Psyzh in Karachaevo-Cherkessia who, according to the FSB, was the head of a “religious-extremist society” in Karachaevo-Cherkessia and was involved in organizing terrorist attacks in the republic. Automatic weapons, ammunition, anti-personnel mines, 15 kilograms of explosives, and bomb components and materials for making mines were reportedly found on the slain suspects.

Zyazikov's Declining Political Support
By Andrei Smirnov

The sharp growth of rebel attacks in Ingushetia this summer has provoked a wave of criticism against Murat Zyazikov, the Ingush president. Many people in Russia have once again started to talk about the Ingush leader’s possible resignation. On August 30, the Gazeta newspaper published an article citing a Kremlin source that said Zyazikov was the number one candidate for resignation among Russia’s regional leaders. Gazeta predicted that the Kremlin would remove Zyazikov before September 20 of this year. The newspaper reported that a special commission of up to 20 members, consisting of representatives from the different federal agencies now operating in Ingushetia, had been set up. The commission is checking to see how the money that was allocated from the federal budget last year to restore the areas of the republic that had been harmed by floods had been spent. An anonymous source in the commission told Gazeta that the commission had come to the republic in response to the numerous complaints by residents of Ingushetia about the corruption of local officials.

During a press conference by Murat Zyazikov that was held in Moscow on August 29, the Ingush president fiercely rejected any possibility that he would imminently resign. At the same time, as the Newsru.com website reported, he added that “everything is in the hands of the tsar, the commander-in-chief and the most-high” (Newsru.com, August 30). By the tsar and commander-in-chief, of course, Zyazikov meant President Vladimir Putin.

Murat Zyazikov knows that the Kremlin is not happy with his work. The Russian authorities do not care much about corruption in the North Caucasus as long as the region remains quiet, but they start to look for a scapegoat as soon as the Caucasian mujahideen start their spring, summer or fall campaigns.

Nevertheless, it seems that Zyazikov is doing his best to avoid resignation. He points to Chechnya as the main source of instability in the North Caucasus and insists that the militants who conduct attacks in Ingushetia come mainly from Chechnya – from “neighboring regions,” as he put it. To make it clear that he meant Chechnya and not other neighbors like North Ossetia or Stavropol krai, the Ingush president said at the press conference that “many crimes and shootings also happen in our neighbors, but nobody mentions them” (Vremya novostei, August 30).

Indeed, it could be asked why everybody talks about the destabilization in Ingushetia and criticizes Zyazikov for it, but nobody brings up the recent increase of attacks in Chechnya or points to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s pro-Russian leader, as someone who cannot control his republic.

Murat Zyazikov’s attempt to deflect the Kremlin’s anger from himself to Ramzan Kadyrov infuriated the latter. On August 30, the day after Zyazikov’s press conference, Ramzan Kadyrov also held a press conference in Moscow, during which he particularly stressed that the situation in Chechnya is now calmer than in Ingushetia. Kadyrov mentioned the fact that more than 2,000 additional troops have been deployed to Ingushetia as a reaction to the numerous attacks in the region. Kadyrov also mentioned the name of Magas – Magomed Yevloev, the military commander (Amir) of the Caucasian insurgency who is of Ingush origin. Kadyrov said that “Chechens and Ingush are fraternal peoples and it is not right to point to neighbors” (Novy Region-Moskva, August 30). The Chechen president declared that Chechnya has had a lot of experience in fighting international terrorism and is ready to help Ingushetia any time. Kadyrov added that while Zyazikov refers to the criminals who come to Ingushetia from Chechnya, Ramzan knew of one who works in the Ingush government itself. Kadyrov was referring to Sherip Alikhadzhiev, the former chief of Chechnya’s Shali district, who confronted Kadyrov and escaped to Ingushetia. Ramzan Kadyrov said that a criminal case had been initiated against Alikhadzhiev in Chechnya.

As one can see, both Zyazikov and Kadyrov point fingers of blame at each other in order to try to avoid the Kremlin’s criticism, but the Russian authorities do not trust any of them. Troops are being deployed not only to Ingushetia, but also to Chechnya. On August 29, the Russian independent news agency Sobkorr.ru cited a source in the Chechen police as saying that an additional 3,000 troops were recently deployed to Chechnya. In fact, the Kremlin is worried about a serious deterioration of the situation in both Chechnya and Ingushetia. On September 4, the separatist Kavkaz-Center website reported the shelling and bombardment of Chechnya’s mountainous areas while the independent Ingushetiya.ru website reported artillery barrages of the mountainous parts of Ingushetia - the Nazran and Sunzha districts. Clearly, the Russian military command is preparing to fight simultaneously on both the Ingush and the Chechen fronts.

Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North Caucasus. He is based in Russia.

Fear of Large-Scale Rebel Attack Grips Grozny
By Andrei Smirnov

On August 27, Ruslan Alkhanov, the pro-Russian Interior Minister of Chechnya, made a sensational statement. Alkhanov attempted to dispel the idea that the Chechen rebels are preparing to launch a large attack on Grozny on the eve of September 1, declaring that “the Chechen Interior Ministry denies the claims about preparations of an attack by the militants on Grozny on the eve of September 1." He added: "These are crude inventions and moonstruck fancies by the authors of such rumors.” According to Alkhanov, “The objective of this provocation is to instill uncertainty in the residents of the republic and to damage the authority of the police and the Unified Military Group (the official name of the Russian military group in Chechnya). At the same time, the Chechen Interior Minster said that the Chechen police had been put on alert, but that “there is nothing unusual about it” (Ekho Moskvy, August 27).

Alkhanov’s comments can be described as sensational given that it is the first time in the last six years that the authorities have used such phrases as “attack (napadenie) on Grozny." It is a clear military term that sounds unusual against the backdrop of official propaganda, according to which the authorities in Chechnya are fighting against terrorists, not against rebels or guerillas. The phrase “an attack on Grozny” implies a military operation, but not a terrorist act. Even if Alkhanov disproved the possibility of a large rebel attack on Grozny, the very fact that he talked about it may mean that something forced him to do so. Every summer and fall, the security officials in Chechnya expect a possible rebel raid on the Chechen capital to take place, but prefer not to talk about it publicly. Moreover, even if they expect it, they have never in recent years used the word "attack" (napadenie). They have preferred to use vague terms such as “large-scale terrorist act” or “provocation.”

So what forced Alkhanov to speak again about an attack? It is the current situation in the city. Just two days before his comments, independent Russian sources, including the Sobkorr.ru and Kavkazky Uzel websites, reported an exodus of civilians from Grozny. Sobkorr.ru reported that entire Chechen families had started to leave Grozny and move to villages or to neighboring Ingushetia. Kavkazky Uzel reported that food and clothing markets in the Chechen capital had been closed. This flight of residents resembles the events of March 2003, when many Chechens left Grozny expecting a rebel attack on the capital on the eve of the referendum on the pro-Russian republican constitution. Many Chechens leave Chechnya every summer fearing increased hostilities in the region. From my own experience, I recall that two years ago, a hairdresser of Chechen origin in Moscow complained to my wife that she could not visit Chechnya in the summer because her cousin, an official in the pro-Russian Chechen government, warned his relatives against going to the republic in the summer time because of security problems.

This year, the panic of Grozny’s residents seems to have become so evident that the authorities simply could not ignore it. Most likely, the panic was deliberately provoked by the rebels, who took special steps to cause it. What the insurgents did in the city this summer can be called psychological warfare. They set up mobile checkpoints, killed policemen on the streets using elite sniper rifles equipped with silencers, showed up well-armed in crowded places and distributed leaflets. On August 28, Sobkorr.ru reported that the rebels simultaneously attacked police departments in mountain districts, including Kurchaloi, Nozhai-Yurt, Vedeno, Shatoi and Sharoi. This summer, the rebels conducted several demonstrative raids on Chechen villages, where they burned down the private houses of senior pro-Russian Chechen policemen. The insurgents raided the villages of Vedeno, Shalazhi, Yandi-Kotar, and Gukhoi.

Another possible reason for the panic is the unprecedented flow of young Chechens to the mountains to join the rebels. Chechen officials have finally had to admit this fact. On September 3, Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov announced that according to official estimates, 35 Chechen men joined the insurgency in August alone (Sobkorr.ru, September 3).

When September 1 had passed, everybody began to talk about a possible raid on Grozny on September 6, the day of Chechen independence. However, it is likely that there will be no such raid in Chechnya, though one could occur in any other part of the North Caucasus. Only Doku Umarov, the top rebel leader, knows when and where it will happen.

Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North Caucasus. He is based in Russia.
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