Before his assassination in
Nalchik last Saturday (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, January 14), Colonel Anatoly
Kyarov was in charge of a special unit that targeted the leader of the
Kabardino-Balkarian section of the Caucasus front Anzor Astemirov (aka
Seifullah). Kyarov’s unit was an independent operation, with its own designated
budget and resources, and reported only to the head of the Kabardino-Balkarian
Anti-Terrorism Commission. The unit’s plans for their target ranged from
persuading Astemirov to surrender all the way up to killing him.
Kyarov’s personal preference was to pressure Astemirov into giving
himself up: the consequences of such an action—a moral victory over one of the
most charismatic leaders of the new generation of the Caucasus resistance—cannot
be overestimated, either for the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic (KBR) or the
Caucasus as a whole. The colonel’s goal was to make direct contact, start
negotiations and convince Seifullah to surrender.
Anatoly Kyarov had
prior experience in persuading his targets to surrender. In 2004, the colonel
arranged for four members of the destroyed Balkar Yarmuk Jamaat—Aslan Babayev,
Khizir Bichekuyev, Takhir Osmanov and Akhmat Akhmatov—to surrender. All four
were sentenced to terms of varying length in Russian prisons, and the court took
the fact that they surrendered into account as an extenuating circumstance.
Starting in summer 2006, Kyarov’s unit embarked on a large-scale search
operation in Kabardino-Balkaria and its neighboring regions. Reliable sources
reported that Astemirov has been ambushed by Kyarov’s unit on at least three
separate occasions, but every time miraculously managed to escape. For example,
in late summer 2007, UBOP (Anti-Organized Crime Department) shooters in the
Nalchik suburb of Khasanya destroyed with massive direct fire a vehicle that
they had surrounded and from which Astemirov had fled minutes before the
shooting began.
Just several days later, Kyarov’s unit planned an ambush
near Shogentsukov Street in downtown Nalchik at the site of the rendezvous point
between Astemirov and his friend Ruslan Odizhev, a field commander and former
inmate of the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Odizhev and his
bodyguard were killed while Astemirov was late for the meeting.
A
retaliatory ambush targeting Anatoly Kyarov actually took place at the same
location on Shogentsukov Street, which was very near the site of Odizhev’s
death. Obviously, revenge was the primary motive for the attempt to assassinate
the colonel.
Anzor Astemirov, however, was not the only one with an axe
to grind. Ever since Kyarov was appointed deputy head of UBOP, several
government agencies as well as human rights organizations had received hundreds
of complaints about torture practiced by his unit.
The most infamous
cases included Rasul Tsakoyev who died after being interrogated by UBOP in 2004,
and Boris Dzagalov who was arrested by UBOP at his home on October 14, 2005, and
subsequently found dead and mutilated among those who had been killed during the
large-scale armed rebel attack in Nalchik the previous day on October 13. Two
more individuals arrested by Kyarov’s unit—Zaur Psanukov and Zeitun Gayev in
2005 and 2007, respectively—allegedly jumped out of the window while being
interrogated and sustained lethal injuries.
Kyarov’s unit was highly
successful against Kabardinian insurgents in no small part because of the
extensive database of Muslim communities in KBRthat it had compiled over the
past 10 years or so. Kyarov’s records reportedly included comprehensive
information on the numbers, personalities, internal and external ties of the
Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat, their sympathizers within the government agencies
and even children over seven years of age—potential future members of the
resistance movement.
One of the greatest services the late Colonel
Kyarov provided the Russian authorities is that, thanks to his agents who had
infiltrated the jamaat, the large-scale rebel military operation on October 13,
2005, was disrupted. It is noteworthy that the Federal Security Bureau of
Kabardino-Balkaria was essentially isolated from participating in developing
tactics and strategies to deal with the October 13 rebel operation. Having been
tipped off by Kyarov’s agent ahead of time, the Russian special services were
able to use their knowledge of Astemirov’s secret signals system to their
advantage. It is widely known that the network-based system employed by the
jamaats not only has major advantages but also serious flaws. One such
shortcoming is its notification system, which makes it possible to mobilize
hundreds of people by using a pre-arranged signal.
Kyarov used his
knowledge of the system ahead of time to thwart the brunt of the attack and this
strategy was employed by the anti-terrorist headquarters in Nalchik. The result
was that in addition to actual combat units, the city streets were filled by
dozens of unsuspecting young revolutionaries who wore orange bands on their
sleeves. These civlians did not receive even the most rudimentary training but
suffered immensely as a result of Kyarov’s forewarning of their plans.
The only thing the special service forces had left to do was shoot at
virtually defenseless men, many of whom did not even know how to detonate a
grenade. The military action of the resistance fighters was thus used as an
excuse to eradicate the most active members of the revolutionary youth and to
step up repression directed against the rest of the populace.
During the
operation, the UBOP led by Kyarov was the only Ministry of Interior unit that
avoided being attacked by the fighters. One of the strongest fighting groups
that planned to target UBOP (a second one attacked the FSB) was destroyed at the
site of their temporary forest camp the night before the attack.
Colonel
Anatoly Kyarov’s participation in the operation earned him an Order of Valor
awarded to him personally by President Putin.
The 2005 attack on Nalchik
was not the only Astemirov action that was derailed by Colonel Kyarov. In
October 2006, Seifullah was preparing to liberate 59 arrested resistance
fighters as they were being transferred from a temporary detention facility to
the Nalchik Court building. Kyarov’s agents again rose to the challenge and the
opening of the trial was deferred for over a year under a false pretext. During
that time, the authorities built a special court building connected to the
detention facility by a passageway. This tactic, unprecedented for Russia and
North Caucasus, is clear evidence of how seriously the Russian government takes
the threat posed by Anzor Astemirov.
Considering the presence of tens of
thousands of troops in KBR, along with the special units of the FSB and the GRU
(Main Intelligence Directorate, the Russian military's intelligence body),
scores of local law enforcement personnel, and the all-Russia FSB anti-terrorism
drills that were taking place in the republic at the time, Kyarov’s
assassination cannot be considered a random piece of good luck. It reflected a
lot of inside information, planning and access to people close to the
intelligence sources who worked for Kyarov. A successfully planned action on
that scale is an important moral victory for Astemirov and a serious humiliation
of Russia’s anti-terrorism establishment. In many ways, the killing of Kyarov is
the most successful assassination carried out by separatists in the North
Caucasus since the killing of Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004.
The next steps
of KBR’s law enforcement authorities are quite predictable—there will be nothing
new. Following the same old pattern, the investigation of Anatoly Kyarov’s
murder will result in the mass repression of Kabardinian Muslims, while his
“black list” database will continue to serve Russia and surely be replenished
with a whole new set of names.
In the meantime, the jamaat, following
the tactic it has already announced, will continue to develop black lists of its
own, bask in the publicity created by the assassination and use its success to
expand the resistance movement and recruit new members for the separatist
cause.