Military Action Underway Across the Northeast Caucasus
Publication: North Caucasus Weekly
May 22, 2009 01:48 PM
Category: North Caucasus Weekly, The Caucasus, North Caucasus

For
the first time in recent years, joint military and police operations
targeting fighters of the armed resistance are underway simultaneously
in all three republics of the Northeast Caucasus: Dagestan, the Chechen
Republic and Ingushetia. The operation in Chechnya involves the troops
from the defense ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB), yet
it is the only place where the action is described as a police-only
maneuver. The reason for the misnomer is Chechen President Ramzan
Kadyrov’s sensitivity to the term “counter-terrorist operation,” which
is commonly used in the region. In Dagestan and Ingushetia, however,
all similar operations are managed specifically by the Anti-Terrorism
Center.
In another development in Chechnya, Kadyrov delivered an
embittered speech during Friday prayers at Grozny’s central mosque
calling for a take-no-prisoners response to those who take up arms
against the government
(http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2009/05/16_a_2987132.shtml). The speech
came on May 15, after a suicide bomber (shaheed) earlier that day
detonated a bomb in front of Chechnya’s Interior Ministry, which
infuriated Kadyrov. The president declared that amnesty for rebel
fighters was now out of the question, and that any of them who had not
yet surrendered would be eradicated.
Kadyrov’s harsh
statement, which has no basis in Russian laws, will most likely be
revised by Moscow in order to avoid embarrassment before the Western
community. Kadyrov said he had decided to deal a decisive blow against
the armed resistance by dividing the mountainous areas of Chechnya into
sectors where authorized officers would be charged with eliminating
everyone found to be armed. In his speech, Kadyrov referred to 70
rebel fighters, but it was not quite clear whether he meant that there
were 70 rebels in the area where the anti-rebel operation was being
conducted or was instead repeating the old claim that the total number
of rebels in Chechnya is no more than 70, and that the goal of the
current operation in the mountainous area of Chechnya is to eradicate
them.
On May 16, Kadyrov personally traveled to southern
Chechnya’s Vedeno district to oversee the operation
(http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=4A0FCCAD82712). At the same
time, reports from the western part of Chechnya indicated that a joint
operation between Chechnya’s and Ingushetia’s law enforcement troops,
supported by Russia’s federal forces, is currently underway near the
village of Bamut in Chechnya’s Achkhoi-Martan district, which borders
Ingushetia’s Sunzha district
(http://gazeta.ru/news/lastnews/2009/05/17/n_1362629.shtml). Joint
operations of that sort are not often seen in the region, where
coordinated action remains difficult due to the many tensions clouding
the relationship between regions of the Russian Federation despite
their common federal ties. As for the operation’s progress, the
government has already reported three dead and several wounded rebels,
including one casualty believed to be a Middle East native. The rebel
group was reported to consist of 20 to 25 men. Two previously stolen
vehicles were also recovered during the operation
(http://newsru.com/russia/17may2009/sv.html).
It is not quite
clear why the government claimed that the group of rebels found near
the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia has ties to Dokka Umarov, as
the news media reported. In accordance with the established tradition,
the reports make no mention of losses among the federal forces: all the
news of casualties among the interior ministry, FSB and defense
ministry troops become public only in the event of an information leak.
For instance, on the evening of May 17, a serviceman was taken to the
hospital, which was followed by reports of one wounded soldier among
the federal forces. As for the rebel siege operation, as of 1 a.m. on
May 17 it was overseen personally by Ingushetia’s president, Yunus-Bek
Yevkurov, and one of Kadyrov’s most trusted associates and member of
the Russian State Duma, Adam Delimkhanov along with his younger brother
Surkho, who commands the Sever (North) battalion, which was established
as a counterweight to Sulim Yamadaev’s Vostok battalion
(http://ru.proua.com/news/world/2009/05/17/165039.html). The
involvement of top officials suggests that the hunted rebel group may
not be merely associated with Umarov: there must have been some
intelligence claiming that Umarov himself was with the group, and the
goal therefore would be his capture, which would certainly be the best
present imaginable for Kadyrov. All-day operations using artillery and
aviation units were underway in Ingush villages bordering Chechnya
(Dattykh, Nizhny Alkun and Chemulga) on May 17
(http://kavkaz.tv/russ/content/2009/05/17/65679.shtml).
The
joint efforts of the pro-Moscow Chechen and Ingush governments were
triggered by a number of high-profile actions carried out by the rebels
as well as by what in all likelihood were criminal elements. In
Ingushetia, it is often hard to determine who is behind a particular
operation (http://newsru.com/russia/17may2009/pok.html). On May 16, the
rebels kidnapped two residents of Verkhny Alkun village, who were later
retrieved by the police during a shootout with the rebel group near
Nizhny Alkun (http://newsru.com/russia/17may2009/sv.html). That same
day gunmen targeted houses in Sleptsovskaya and Karabulak villages, and
a stationary checkpoint near Yandare village was shot at as well
(www.ingushetia.org, May 17). A number of murders and armed assaults
against private homes forced Yevkurov to react swiftly and mount a
response to the actions of the armed opposition—specifically, the
Shariat Jamaat led by Amir Akhmed Yevloev.
The joint operation
of May 17 was concluded with a joint press conference of Yevkurov and
Kadyrov in the Ingush capital Magas, where both leaders emphasized the
need for stronger coordination of their anti-rebel activities. Not
much more should be expected from the joint operation considering that
both presidents rushed to announce its “preliminary” results by
mid-day. News reports cautiously admitting that the rebels dispersed
in the mountainous areas should be read to indicate that the rebels
broke the siege again (http://newsru.com/russia/17may2009/banda.html).
On the evening of May 17, Yevkurov quoted a realistic number of rebel
fighters (i.e. 15). Yet, despite Yevkurov’s admission, a day later
(May 18) Russian news media continued to say that the rebel headcount
in the area was as high as 70
(http://www.radiomayak.ru/doc.html?id=129308&cid=45). Contradictory
numbers in Russian government reports are nothing new: the FSB,
interior ministry and local governments routinely give differing
reports, a sign that the government agencies lack coordination even
when it comes to press relations.
Operations in Dagestan are
not being coordinated with Chechnya but rather have continued on their
routine course, and recently news reports cited places like Khasavyurt,
Karabudakhkentsky district and Buinaksk. On May 13-14, a large-scale
military and police operation targeting the Khasavyurt Jamaat (the
Dagestan Front of the Caucasus Emirate) was conducted in the forest
near Endyrei village and the Sulak River. Four rebels and one
serviceman of the elite Alfa special forces group were killed during
two days of fighting. The Dagestani government hoped that casualties
might include the new Dagestani amir Al Bara (Umalat Magomedov);
however, after Magomedov did not turn up among the dead, the government
reported the casualties included the amir of the Khasavyurt sector,
Amirza Abdullaev (gazeta.ru/politics/2009/05/14_a_2986313.shtml).
The
government barely had time to declare victory over the local rebels
when a senior police lieutenant was gunned down by unidentified
individuals on May 16 in Khasavyurt
(http://gazeta.ru/news/lastnews/2009/05/17/n_1362594.shtml).
Additional
federal regiments were dispatched to Karabudakhkentsky district,
designated as a site of counter-terrorism operation on May 17. This
area is located to the southeast of Buinaksk and is settled primarily
by ethnic Kumyks. The government reported that the forest near the
villages of Kakashura, Kakamasi, Chankurbe and Dorgeli serves as a
hideout for a group of rebels responsible for several assaults against
law enforcement and government forces
(http://www.riadagestan.ru/news/2009/05/17/81027/). During his
interview with the Kavkazky Uzel website on April 17, Dagestani
President Mukhu Aliev admitted that dozens of interior ministry
servicemen are being killed in the republic
(http://www.assalam.ru/assalam2009/334/01-s.shtml).
Taken
together, military actions in the area indicate that the current year
will be no exception to the general trend of increasing rebel fighter
activity in the spring and the summer. Therefore, those who monitor
developments in the region will be paying close attention to the
government’s actions toward the rebels as well as tactics used toward
their families. In the meantime, the Chechen government announced that
all law enforcement agencies in Chechnya are on heightened alert and
all military units are on standby
(http://www.radiomayak.ru/doc.html?id=129308&cid=45). It is not
known how long the police in the republic will be operating on this
status.
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