Unidentified persons burn down shop in Kabardino-Balkaria

Kabardino-Balkaria’s government blamed for allowing region’s destabilization

Arsen Kanokov (Moscow Times)

On April 1, the head of Kabardino-Balkaria, Arsen Kanokov, and Moscow’s envoy to the North Caucasus, Aleksandr Khloponin, jointly announced that the resignation of the republic’s government was imminent, probably due on April 4. Kanokov held his government responsible for Kabardino-Balkaria’s instability over the previous several months. "The government is responsible, in particular, for interaction with youth, for fighting the religious extremism,” Kanokov stated. "I plan to strengthen precisely these sides in the new administration.” Khloponin reassured Kanokov that he still trusted him and that he did not think Kanokov himself was responsible for the instability that has been growing Kabardino-Balkaria since May 2010 (www.gazeta.ru, April 1).

Aleksandr Merkulov was appointed as the head of Kabardino-Balkaria’s government in August 2009, following his predecessor, Andrei Yarin’s departure to the Russian president’s administration. Merkulov and Yarin, ...

Russian Colonization Thugs 

Recently news emerged through web sites on the World Wide Web and the media statements that reproduced Russian state television channels, and attributed to a spokesman presented as a leader of the "secret" group which is called "Black Hawks”, a group of Anti-Wahhabism, described through television interviews by Russian Television Channels, and was give the domain to spit his venom  that almost known of its source, in order to penetrate the barrier of the Russian incapacitation, promote the Byzantine debate, threats and insults. The alleged leader of the group said, calling his group, the Group of "Anti-Wahhabism" and calling itself the Black Hawks (Chernye Yasterby) in a television interview with Ren-TV that his group would kill the children of the rebels.?? "Let them [the militants] collect tribute from businessmen and vodka barons, but do not let them kill our children”, said the leader of the Black Hawks, who did not give his ...

Kabardino-Balkaria’s "Black Hawks:” Grassroots Vigilantes or FSB Surrogates?

Over the past month or so, the Russian media have been very actively reporting on the creation of an anti-Wahhabi paramilitary unit operating on the territory of Kabardino-Balkaria in response to the actions of insurgents against members of law enforcement agencies. It has been also claimed that this unit will kill family members of militants. There are several aspects of this story that are highly disturbing and alarming: the name of the paramilitary unit, its alleged members giving interviews to any Moscow journalist they bump into, and the way Russia’s state-controlled media outlets suddenly started advertising this mythical organization.

The fact is that in early February 2011, a statement was disseminated in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, about the creation of an organization called the "Black Hawks.” A man in a black mask hiding his face ...