Russian President Sacks Ingushetia's Interior Minister
08/17/09 03:01 pm (EST)
(RTTNews) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday sacked Ingushetia's interior minister over a bombing attack on a police station in the volatile southern republic, on grounds that the attack was preventable.
"The police must protect the people and the police must also be able to defend themselves... I have decided to relieve Ingushetia's interior minister of his duties," Medvedev was quoted as saying by Russia's official news agencies.
Earlier in the day, at least 20 people, mostly police officers, were killed and more than 100 others injured in a suicide-bomb attack at a police headquarters in Russia's southern restive republic of Ingushetia
A suspected militant rammed a truck packed with explosives through the gates of the police headquarters in Nazran, the main city in the republic, as police officers were lining up for the morning inspection. The injured included 11 children, living in residential buildings adjacent to the police headquarters.
Medvedev said the attack was not only a result of "problems connected to terrorist activities, but also a result of the unsatisfactory performance of the republic's law enforcement agencies." He said the attack could have been prevented as the vehicle used in the attack was reported to be stolen and the police warned about such an attack being planned.
"This is totally unacceptable," Medvedev said, adding that he has also ordered an investigation into the work of the police. He also ordered federal interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to submit "concrete proposals on how to bring about order and strengthen cadres within Ingushetia's interior ministry".
The attack came just months after Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was severely wounded when a suicide bomber attacked his motorcade in June. Yevkurov is yet to report for work and is currently recovering from the injuries sustained in the attack.
Following the assassination attempt on Yevkurov, Medvedev ordered Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the neighboring republic of Chechnya, to step up security measures in the country's North Caucasus region, and instructed him to strengthen and personally oversee the anti-insurgent operations in the two Russian republics.
Since then, the republic's construction minister, a Supreme Court judge and the Ingush forensic chief have been killed in such militant attacks. Their killings are among the many acts of violence in Russia's troubled mountainous North Caucasus region, which has witnessed several terror attacks and frequent clashes between separatists and security forces in the recent past.
Official estimates indicate that nearly 50 people have died in violence in Ingushetia between January and March. Experts say that the insurgency in the region is fueled by Islamic extremism, separatism and poor economic conditions.
Though Russia announced in April that it was formally ending its decade-long counter-terrorism operation in the volatile southern republic of Chechnya, periodic bombings and clashes between militants and federal troops still disrupt Chechnya and nearby regions, particularly Daghestan and Ingushetia.
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