Russian Regional Leader Blames Insurgency For Scholar's Killing
January 03, 2011
NALCHIK, Russia -- The president of the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria has blamed the local wing of the North Caucasus insurgency for the killing of a Circassian scholar, RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service reports.
Aslan Tsipinov, a respected ethnographer and folklorist, was shot dead on December 29 by two unidentified assailants outside his home in a Nalchik suburb.
Kabardino-Balkaria President Arsen Kanokov, who is also Circassian, said the killers' "cynicism and cruelty" was boundless.
He called on the republic's Interior Ministry, the head of which was recently replaced, to find those responsible for Tsipinov's death.
The slaying of Tsipinov was not on the December list of attacks and killings posted on the insurgent website islamdin.com on January 1.
But in a separate video posted on the same website on January 2, Islamic insurgent leader Abdullakh confirmed that it was his fighters who shot dead republican Mufti Anas ...
Funeral of Mufti Anas Pshikhachev in Kabardino-Balkaria. (RIA Novosti)
On December 29, 2010, a prominent Circassian ethnographer, Arsen Tsipinov, was gunned down at the doorsteps of his home in a suburb of Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. Tsipinov was known for his active role in promoting Circassian ethnic identity and culture. The ethnographer’s killing came just two weeks after Kabardino-Balkaria’s mufti, Anas Pshikhachev, was killed also at the doorsteps of his home on December 15 (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, December 29). On December 18, seven hunters from Stavropol region were found dead in Kabardino-Balkaria reportedly in what appeared to be an insurgents’ hideout. Later another person that had been kidnapped in the same incident was also found dead, which brought the total number of the victims up to eight (www.regnum.ru, December 18, 2010). ...
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