Starting Points: North Caucasus

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Apr 7, 2010

Alexander Tikhomirov's life illustrates challenge radical Islam poses in Russia

Image by doodledubz collective via Flickr

By Philip P. Pan
Wednesday, April 7, 2010; A08

MOSCOW -- He had been a bright but lonely child from a sleepy city near the Mongolian border, in a Buddhist region of Russia far from the nation's Muslim centers. But by the time he was killed last month, thousands of miles away in the volatile North Caucasus, Alexander Tikhomirov had become the face of an Islamist insurgency.

After two young women blew themselves up on the Moscow subway last week, killing 40 people in the city's worst terrorist attack in years, investigators said they suspected that Tikhomirov had recruited and trained them, and perhaps dozens of other suicide bombers.

How the schoolboy whom neighbors called Sascha became the tech-savvy militant known as Sayid Buryatsky remains a question wrapped in rumor and speculation. But the outline of Tikhomirov's journey from the Siberian steppes to the mountains of Chechnya provides a sense of the challenge that radical Islam poses in Russia and the speed with which the insurgency in the nation's southwest is changing.

In less than two years with the rebels, Tikhomirov became their most effective propagandist, drawing in young Muslims with his fluent Russian, colloquial interpretations of Islam and mastery of the Internet. When security forces gunned him down last month at age 27, the guerrillas immediately cast him as a martyr.

Even in death, he remains influential. The rebel leader Doku Umarov has vowed fresh attacks in the Russian heartland by the brigade of suicide bombers that Tikhomirov helped revive. And he remains a digital legend, with his writings and videos preserved on the Web and his DVDs sold outside mosques across the former Soviet Union.

Neighbors in Ulan Ude, capital of the Siberian province of Buryatia, remember Tikhomirov as an awkward boy from a troubled family. His father was Buryat, an ethnic minority related to Mongols, and died soon after he was born. His mother, said to be an ethnic Russian, struggled to make ends meet at a local market.

One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of police scrutiny, said Tikhomirov's interest in Islam came after he was forced to drop out of high school and attend vocational school. Others traced it to a stepfather from the Caucasus.

But in a letter posted on a rebel Web site, Tikhomirov's mother said he was simply drawn in by a library copy of the Koran when he was 17. "That same year, he started to search for people who could tell him anything about Islam," she wrote.

Tikhomirov may have had an early brush with Islamic extremism and Russia's heavy-handed efforts to stamp it out. An Uzbek preacher named Bakhtiyar Umarov moved to his city about the time he converted, and Tikhomirov studied with him, acquaintances said. After Umarov caused a stir by trying to build a mosque, Russia deported the preacher to Uzbekistan, where he was jailed on charges of "terrorist propaganda." But his defenders insist that he is a moderate and could not have radicalized Tikhomirov.

In his late teens, Tikhomirov moved to Moscow, where he attended an Islamic college that the authorities later closed in a crackdown on suspected extremism. He then traveled to Cairo, where he studied Arabic and attended lectures by Muslim scholars, one of whom he cited years later to justify violence in the name of Islam.

In 2003, he returned to Moscow, telling friends that the Egyptian authorities had kicked him out for his religious activities. He took the Muslim name Sayid, calling himself Sayid Buryatsky.

But he seemed far from ready to join the rebels in the North Caucasus. Investigators say he took a job as a low-level assistant to the Russian Council of Muftis, which unites the nation's Muslim spiritual boards.

Suppressed by the czars and the Communists, Islam has enjoyed a fitful rebirth in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of the nation's estimated 20 million Muslims are ethnic minorities who adhere to a moderate branch of the faith. But radical views have made inroads, fueled by foreign proselytizers and frustration with state-backed spiritual leaders.

Acquaintances say Tikhomirov embraced a movement known as Salafism, which argues that Islam has been corrupted over the centuries and urges a return to the stricter practices of the earliest Muslims. The movement is popular among young Muslims in Russia, but the security forces often target its adherents as extremists.

Russia's traditional Islamic leaders have tried to steer young people toward moderate views, but a severe shortage of mosques, due in part to state limits, has made that difficult. In Moscow, six mosques serve as many as 3 million believers, the largest Muslim population of any city in Europe.

Aslam Ezhaev, director of an Islamic publishing house, said Tikhomirov voiced frustration with Muslim officialdom and eventually returned to Buryatia, where he took a job as a warehouse guard and offered to translate Arabic books for him.

Ezhaev suggested that Tikhomirov start a podcast for his Web site, Radio Islam. Tikhomirov proved be a talented preacher; his lectures were an immediate hit.

Ezhaev said he opposed violence and forbade Tikhomirov to discuss jihad. "It was easy for him to stay within the limits," he said. "I didn't see any signs of fanaticism."

On the Web, radicals criticized Tikhomirov for refusing to talk about Russia's brutal efforts to crush the insurgency in the Caucasus, where rebels in 2007 declared jihad to establish an Islamist emirate.

In the spring of 2008, Tikhomirov received a recruitment video from a senior rebel commander. "I considered it probably three or five seconds," he recalled in a video of his own, then concluded that God was challenging him to back up his sermons with action.

Because of his mixed ethnicity, he quickly became a powerful symbol for an insurgency trying to expand beyond Chechnya to the rest of the Caucasus. His sermons, which he filmed in combat gear, weaved scripture with sarcasm, striking a chord in an impoverished Muslim region brimming with resentment against the security forces.

Tikhomirov called the screams of injured enemies "music for the ears" and detailed his central role in the campaign of suicide bombings that began last summer with the revival of Riyad-us Saliheen, a brigade that once staged attacks across Russia.

"While I am alive," he wrote in December, "I will do everything possible so that the ranks of Riyad-us Saliheen are broadened and new waves of mujaheddin go on to martyrdom operations."

On March 2, when security forces surrounded him and other fighters in a village in Ingushetia, Tikhomirov recorded a final sermon on his mobile phone, officials said. The authorities recovered the phone, along with a 50-liter barrel of explosives.

Apr 6, 2010

Global Voices Online » Russia: War Reporter Blogs on Trauma and Politics of the Subway Attacks

Posted By Veronica Khokhlova On 2010-04-06

^[1]

Flowers at Park Kultury subway station in Moscow - April 3, 2010 (image by Veronica Khokhlova)

Olga Allenova (LJ user allenova) is a special correspondent for the Kommersant daily, author of Chechnya is Close: War Through the Eyes of a Woman ^[2] (RUS), a collection of the 1999-2007 war reportage from Russia's North Caucasus region. In the blog post ^[3] (RUS) translated below, she writes about the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow ^[4] and the 2004 Beslan school siege ^[5], the subsequent pain and trauma, and the resulting political and media responses.

Today a friend of mine […] suddenly told me that she had been [avoiding subway and taking buses and other means of land public transportation] to work this whole past week. She works at [Kolomenskaya ^[6] subway station], and lives at [Rechnoy Vokzal ^[7]]. It takes her only 40 minutes to get from home to work. But since Tuesday, she's been leaving home two hours earlier - at 6 AM, that is - to be at the office by 9 AM.

I didn't get what she meant right away. That is, I could guess she was stressed out, like many other Muscovites, as a result of [last Monday's subway blasts]. But I didn't know her condition was that serious. And when I asked her why she was so sure something similar couldn't happen on [a bus], she started crying. And I suddenly realized that I had just told her a very cruel thing. The imaginary safety of land transportation was keeping her afloat, allowed her to continue going to work, to somehow plan her life. And now she was sobbing, saying this: “I can't live! I can't live! I can't descend into the subway! I can't look at the people!” And now I could understand her. I was in a similar state in 2004, in and after Beslan. Everything that used to give my life a sense of some universal justice had collapsed then. I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat or go out into the street. In front of my eyes stood black plastic bags, and the black women screaming above them. It's impossible to express this, the words that I'm writing now seem absurd. Even now I have a lump in my throat. I don't even remember how I got out of that. Many hours, weeks, I'd been talking to all kinds of people, friends, a priest, my husband, colleagues. It was then that I decided I wouldn't be seeing psychologists - they aren't of much help. They are just doing their job, staying outside - outside your pain.

Then a year passed, and I went to Beslan again. And again, there was this terrible hurt, and these symbols - white balloons over the school, white birds over the cemetery, an old woman saying tender words to a dove that chose to sit on her granddaughter's grave, children's faces on the cold gravestones, their teddy bears, their chocolates and cola. I'm a strong person, I know that. I've seen a lot in my 33 years. War, dirt, terrorist acts, corpses that no longer looked like people. I know that I've survived all that. But I know that deep inside I still haven't recovered from Beslan. I don't like to talk about it. I try not to think about it. Because when I do, I sob from despair, from fear. I sob because I still haven't understood why it happened. I sob the way my friend did today. She's just scared. There are many people like her now. People are scared to go inside subway. They are scared of women in headscarves, even though many of these women are Moscow natives. They are scared of their own fear. Fear is an enemy that destroys a person from within. If you are scared and you give up, the fear will take full hold of you. When I'm scared to go to the Caucasus, I realize that if I give in to fear and don't go once, I'll stop going there altogether - and I'll end up stuck at home, behind the closed doors, and I'll be scared even to pick up a phone. I know people to whom this happened.

I don't understand why they aren't discussing this problem on TV. Why there are no psychologists who would talk in prime time to people about the problems that are bothering them a lot. Not every person would agree to see a psychologist. Not everyone understands that it's a disease that requires treatment.

They'd tell me - what TV discussions do you expect when on the day of the attacks they didn't even air special newscasts on TV. I live in this country, so I'm not surprised. A year after Beslan, exactly on the anniversary, Moscow was celebrating its birthday. And when I wrote a text about it, outraged readers responded to me: “What, do you want us to forget our own birthdays, anniversaries, weddings?” My friend, by the way, was also celebrating her birthday on that day. And now she is sobbing from fear. It's just that at that time it all seemed too distant. And now it's very close. […] And I'm not surprised by how the federal channels were covering the subway attacks. If you remember Nord-Ost [theater hostage crisis of 2002 ^[8]] and the live broadcasts on [NTV ^[9]] - and what they did to NTV afterwards - it becomes clear that no live broadcasts are possible in this country under this regime. I'm not gonna get hysterical and scream about why the officials aren't showing me the truth - the way Beslan mothers did at one point. I simply despise this regime. I don't see them as authorities. For me, they are a cowardly bunch of people who couldn't even get out of the Beslan airport, but were sitting there, in the hastily set up headquarters (just in case, so that they could get out if the terrorists suddenly besiege the whole city) - at the time when the children were being shot at by tanks and grenade launchers. These same cowardly people were trying to convince the citizens whose relatives were taken hostage in the besieged Nord-Ost [theater]: “Colleagues! Calm down! All the terrorists are waiting for is for you to hold a rally on Red Square! We won't allow this!” A quote from [Valentina Matvienko ^[10]]. They, of course, couldn't allow such a blow to their image. A rally against the war in Chechnya, and right on Red Square. Against the sacred and on the sacred.

I don't expect anything from these people. I even understand why they disliked the publications in the media claiming that the Moscow attacks were acts of revenge for the Caucasus. [Boris Gryzlov] is very displeased with hearing all the time about the regime's cowardliness. And about the mistakes they had committed but wouldn't admit to. […]

But - again - this isn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that people need help. Professional psychological help as well as simple moral support from [family and friends]. If you have a friend who is scare to take subway, talk to him about it. Help him. Maybe you'll save him from trouble. We can only rely on ourselves, on our dear ones, on fellow citizens. Because there's no one else in this country that we can rely on.

Article printed from Global Voices Online: http://globalvoicesonline.org

URL to article: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/06/russia-war-reporter-blogs-on-trauma-and-politics-of-the-subway-attacks/

URLs in this post:

[1] Image: http://globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/park-kultury.jpg

[2] Chechnya is Close: War Through the Eyes of a Woman: http://www.kommersant.ru/Library/books-authors.aspx?AuthorID=51

[3] the blog post: http://allenova.livejournal.com/3340.html

[4] the March 29 subway bombings in Moscow: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/05/russia-reflections-on-the-subway-bombings-and-politics/

[5] the 2004 Beslan school siege: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

[6] Kolomenskaya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolomenskaya_%28Metro%29

[7] Rechnoy Vokzal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechnoy_Vokzal_%28Moscow_Metro%29

[8] theater hostage crisis of 2002: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

[9] NTV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTV_%28Russia%29

[10] Valentina Matvienko: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentina_Matviyenko

Apr 5, 2010

For Moscow's Ethnic Minorities, A Fresh Sense Of Fear - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Moscow's Muslim community is concerned about an increase in racist attacks.

April 01, 2010

By Brian Whitmore

In the aftermath of this week's twin suicide bombings in Moscow, Uzlipat Gebekova is very careful about what she wears in public.

A resident of Makhachkala, the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Daghestan, Gebekova is living in Moscow temporarily while she studies jewelry-making. And she doesn't want anybody associating her with the two female suicide bombers who wore long black skirts to cover the explosive belts they detonated on the Moscow Metro, killing 39 Monday-morning commuters.

"The situation is very dangerous for us," Gebekova says. "Wearing a head scarf is a risk. I think even wearing a skirt would be dangerous. It's best just to wear trousers. To come here [to Moscow] now -- whether for business, education, or medical treatment -- is dangerous."

Life in Moscow is never easy for ethnic minorities, particularly people from the Caucasus. They are routinely subjected to discrimination, harassment, attacks, and humiliating document checks by police. But their situation gets even worse when terrorism strikes, returning the public focus to Russia's long-simmering conflict in the North Caucasus, and heightening resentment between ethnic Slavs and other city residents.

The Moscow-based Sova Center, which monitors racially motivated attacks, has recorded assaults on five members of ethnic minorities in three separate incidents since the March 29 attacks. Among those attacked were three females, including a 17-year-old Armenian girl and two Muslim women who were wearing head scarves.

For them, it doesn't matter where in the Caucasus somebody is from.

The Sova Center's deputy director, Galina Kozhevnikova, says the number of actual attacks is undoubtedly much higher, since minorities are often afraid to report such attacks and police are reluctant to investigate them.

"We know that many people who don't have a Slavic appearance have consciously avoided going out in public in the days following the attack. They are afraid of attacks," Kozhevnikova says.

Stress, Fear, And Grief

Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov has claimed responsibility for the March 29 suicide bombings in a video posted on the Internet and said attacks on Russia would continue.

And with Moscow bracing for possible follow-up attacks, some politicians are making pointed statements that it is time for the government to take the gloves off and deal harshly with those responsible for plotting and carrying out terrorist attacks.

In remarks reported by the website gzt.ru, State Duma Deputy Aleksandr Gurov claimed that concerns over political correctness were preventing the authorities from dealing with terrorism effectively. "How much can we play with this so-called tolerance?" he said.

But tolerance is the last thing ethnic minorities are experiencing, according to Abdullah Duduyev, editor of the Chechen-language magazine "Dosh."

Duduyev says he and other Chechens in Moscow are "saddened by what happened," adding that those who perished in the blasts were "innocent people." He adds that "now it is the Chechens who will suffer, as they always do" in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.

"Attitudes toward us have gotten worse," Duduyev says. "When two Muslim women were beaten in the metro, not a single person in the crowded wagon stuck up for them. This shows the mood of society. Stress, fear, and grief are visible on people's faces. It is impossible to hide the aggression people feel toward outsiders."

The twin suicide bombings killed 39 people

Central Asians living in the Russian capital are also fearful. "The atmosphere for our compatriots in Moscow is depressing. People are afraid and are going out less. We canceled a meeting two days ago due to security concerns," says Abdullo Davlatov, a leading member of Moscow's Tajik migrant community. "Police are checking documents more, but we have not yet had any complaints about attacks by nationalists or skinheads."

Outhouses And Sewers

Aleksandr Verkhovsky, director of the Sova Center, says the rhetoric used by the authorities has contributed to the climate of fear among minorities. This includes recent remarks by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who pledged on March 30 to "drag" terrorists "from the depths of the sewer." The comments were an echo of his notorious pledge in 1999 to "wipe out" terrorists while they were sitting "in the outhouse."

Verkhovsky says that instead of such provocative phrases, Putin should be using language that unites society.

"So this time the prime minister isn't going to wipe out terrorists in the outhouse. Instead he is going to get them in the sewer," Verkhovsky says. "Of course you need to go after the terrorists, but this over-the-top rhetoric is destructive. It encourages negative emotions. This is the prime minister speaking, not some common citizen talking in the kitchen."

Initially, Russian officials said they were focusing on the North Caucasus, where Moscow has been battling separatists for nearly two decades, to find those involved with the recent attacks. But Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the National Security Council, suggested that Georgian involvement in the attacks "could not be excluded."

Russia and Georgia fought a bitter five-day war in August 2008 and relations between the two neighbors remain tense. The Georgian government -- which immediately condemned the attacks, offered condolences to the victims, and said it was prepared to assist in any investigation -- denied Patrushev's claim.

Johny Karatskhelia, president of Lazare, a Moscow-based Georgian community organization, says Patrushev's remark shows that all people from the Caucasus living in Moscow are under suspicion -- and therefore in danger.

"For them, it doesn't matter where in the Caucasus somebody is from. They don't make a distinction between a Chechen, an Ingush, a Georgian, or an Abkhaz," Karatskhelia says. "All Georgians and all people from the Caucasus are afraid of what will happen next."

RFE/RL's North Caucasus, Russian, Tajik, Georgian, and Echo of the Caucasus services contributed to this report

Masha Lipman - How Russia nourishes radical Islam - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Masha Lipman
Monday, April 5, 2010; A11

MOSCOW

After the bombings in this city's subway system last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that we all "face the same enemy." No one -- whether in Moscow, London, Madrid or New York -- can be fully secure against acts of terrorism. In Russia, however, the problem of terrorism is arguably more difficult than in Europe or the United States. We have radical Islam right inside our borders, in the North Caucasus. There is no getting away from it: People who live in this territory are Russian citizens; its provinces are financed by the Russian federal budget. It is as though Afghanistan, with its insurgent activity, were a U.S. state within the borders of the Lower 48.

But while the challenge of terrorism cries for long-term, consistent strategy, Russia's system of heavy-handed and unaccountable governance precludes strategic thinking.

In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin's government responded to armed secessionists in Chechnya by waging a full-scale war. Russia's armed forces were undertrained and undersupplied; horrific atrocities ensued on both sides. The 1996 peace agreement was evidence of Russia's humiliating weakness: A former superpower failed to subdue its own tiny region.

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"Peace" in Chechnya entailed frequent kidnappings for ransom, hostage-taking and terrorist attacks. In 1999, a Chechen force invaded the neighboring province of Dagestan, about the same time explosions of apartment buildings in three Russian cities famously took the lives of roughly 300 people.

When Vladimir Putin became president in 2000, his solution was a new war. With it came more atrocities, deeper brutalization and, in Russia at large, growing xenophobia against "those from the Caucasus." This time federal forces defeated the Chechen fighters, but terrorist attacks continued through 2004. The most horrific of these was the seizure of Beslan school where more than 330 hostages, over half of them children, were killed that September.

By the mid-2000s, secession was no longer the issue in Chechnya, but a new problem was building: Militant Islam was on the rise all over the North Caucasus. In the early '90s Islam had still been weak in this traditionally Muslim territory; adults had secular Soviet educations, and the attraction of Russian culture was still strong. But the new generation growing up in the Chechnya devastated by the Russian army, and in neighboring provinces such as Dagestan and Ingushetia, were increasingly influenced by Islamic culture and Islam, not infrequently its radical strains. Clandestine extremist groups called for jihad across the territory of Russia. Training centers for suicide bombers reportedly operate in the North Caucasus.

The Kremlin shifted tactics a few years ago, installing pro-Moscow leaders in these Muslim provinces and reducing the federal government's mission to allocating funds and occasional anti-terrorist operations. It turned a blind eye to subversive attacks, explosions, and assassinations of area police and local administrators, which have become routine in Ingushetia and Dagestan. The central government also ignored the brutal practices local leaders used against Islamic radicals and other criminal or extremist groups. As long as violence was contained within the North Caucasus, the thinking went, the bulk of Russia remained relatively safe. But last week's attacks underscore just how flawed and shortsighted this policy is.

Today, the rise of radical Islam in the North Caucasus is inevitable, especially with such forces active in many parts of the world. Russia's only strategic option is a long-term and multi-pronged government commitment to the problem. It is critical that the Russian government and the nation treat the people of the North Caucasus as their fellow countrymen -- no easy task given that today they are seen as a suspect culture or simply unwanted intruders. Other urgent needs are to improve security in Russia at large as well as to increase the efficiency of anti-terrorism practices. But these missions will be next to impossible in a country where the violent behavior of police officers makes them a threat to the people, rather than a force from which citizens can draw protection.

Strains of official rhetoric echo the language of 1999: After the infamous blasts of Moscow apartment buildings, Putin pledged to wipe out terrorists in outhouses. Now he vows "to drag them out of the sewer and into broad daylight." But large-scale use of force is not an option. As happened in the '90s, it is bound to start another vicious circle of punitive measures and extremists' efforts to exact revenge.

Reasonable calls have also been heard. President Dmitry Medvedev spoke last week about the need to create in the North Caucasus "the right kind of modern environment for education, for doing business, for overcoming cronyism . . . and, of course, for confronting corruption." But corruption plagues more than the North Caucasus; it's the texture of the Russian system of governance, which is built on political monopoly and unaccountability. Unless Russia makes systemic reforms, good intentions will not translate into stronger policies.

Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Apr 1, 2010

Chechen rebel leader asserts role in Moscow subway bombings - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post staff writer
Thursday, April 1, 2010; A08

MOSCOW -- An Islamist rebel leader asserted responsibility Wednesday for the suicide bombings in the Moscow subway stations that killed 39 people two days earlier and threatened more attacks to avenge what he called atrocities ordered by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Russia's volatile southwest.

The video statement by the Chechen militant, Doku Umarov, was posted on the Internet hours after another double bombing killed at least 12 people in Dagestan, located east of Chechnya in the North Caucasus region, where the Kremlin has been battling a separatist insurgency.

"You Russians only see the war on television and hear about it on the radio, and this is why you are quiet and do not react to the atrocities that your bandit groups under Putin's command carry out in the Caucasus," Umarov said in the 4.5-minute video. "I promise you that the war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your lives and under your skin."

Umarov, dressed in fatigues and sitting in what appeared to be a forest clearing, said he ordered the two subway bombings in retaliation for an anti-terrorism raid by security forces in February in which at least 20 people were killed, asserting that officers used knives to execute innocent, impoverished villagers.

Umarov said he could only grin when accused of terrorism because he has not heard people condemn Putin for such crimes, and he pledged new attacks on Russians "who send their gangs to the Caucasus and support their security services that carry out massacres."

There was no government response, but Chechnya's representative in the Kremlin-controlled parliament dismissed the threat. "It doesn't matter that he has claimed responsibility for those bestial murders," Ziyad Sabsabi told the Interfax news agency. "In any case, his days are numbered."

Russian forces have tried for years to capture or kill Umarov, who declared jihad in 2007 to establish what the rebels call a Caucasus Emirate.

But it is unclear how much power he wields over the insurgency, which analysts say is a loose network of groups that operate independently.

The militants have stepped up attacks over the past year in the North Caucasus, where bombings and shootouts with the authorities occur almost daily. But the timing of Wednesday's double bombing in Dagestan, occurring so soon after two female bombers struck the Moscow subway system, raised fears of a fresh wave of terrorism across the country.

Officials said the first blast Wednesday occurred as traffic police officers approached the bomber's car in the town of Kizlyar, near the Chechen border. As investigators and onlookers gathered, an assailant in a police uniform pushed through the crowd and set off another explosion. Nine police officers were among the dead, including the town's police chief.

In televised remarks, Putin said the attack may have been committed by "the same gang" responsible for the Moscow blasts. "It does not matter for us in what part of the country these crimes have been committed or who -- people of what ethnicity or religion -- have fallen victim to these crimes," he said, ordering police reinforcements in the North Caucasus. "We see this as a crime against Russia."

The subway bombings were the first suicide attacks in Moscow in nearly six years and raised questions about Putin's record of maintaining peace in the capital, as well as his brute-force approach to suppressing militants.

President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's protégé, has pushed for a more balanced strategy in the North Caucasus, appointing officials there who have sought to improve economic conditions, open talks with critics and draw public support away from the rebels.

"The terrorists want to destabilize the situation in the country, to destroy civil society, and are driven by the desire to sow fear and panic among people. We will not let this happen," Medvedev said at a session of the Russian Security Council.

Gulnara Rustamova, head of Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights, said conditions in the province seemed to have been improving since Medvedev appointed a new governor last month. Wednesday's attack, she said, may have been intended to undermine the governor's efforts.

"I hope he has the wisdom and enough strength to take the right steps and to continue building the dialogue in society," she said. "We are all so sick and tired of all these terrorist acts and unlawful murders. We want to live in peace and to be safe."

Mar 31, 2010

BBC News - Twelve killed by twin bombings in Russia's Dagestan

Image by Bolshakov via Flickr

BBC News - Twelve killed by twin bombings in Russia's Dagestan

Jan 2, 2010

Turkey, Georgia, UAE bankroll Caucasus rebels

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Created 02/01/2010 - 20:00

Militants in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan have received financing from supporters in Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates, television said Saturday, after a special operation yielded notebooks of expenses kept by rebels.

The notebooks seized during a special operation in Dagestan conducted by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on New Year's Eve show the rebels had received hefty donations from their foreign sponsors, national television said, airing footage from the press department of the Dagestan branch of FSB.

"Tens of millions of rubles came from the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Turkey and Azerbajan," NTV channel said. Rossia television channel added that supporters from Saudi Arabia were also among the foreign sponsors.

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"The sums are huge," Rossia channel said. "There was never any doubt anyway that militants in the North Caucasus have been generously bankrolled. But that generously...."

The notebooks show that rebels also extorted money from local businessmen and unscrupulous officials, television reports said.

"The money was distributed among various groups" in Dagestan and was used to finance purchases of arms, medicine and cars, they said.

The notebooks belonged to the leader of Dagestan's rebels, Umalat Magomedov also known by his nom de guerre as Al-Bara, television reports said, adding he was one of four rebels killed during the December 31 operation in the town of Khasavyurt.

"In spring, Al Qaeda's emissary in the Caucasus appointed Magomedov commander of the Dagestan front," Rossia channel said.

Authorities have also seized machine guns, grenade launchers and 45 cell phones containing rebels' phone numbers.

Authorities have long said that Islamist rebels receive financing from abroad.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in August acknowledged "foreign" elements as a factor fomenting instability in the region, but stressed the root cause of the problem was within Russia itself, referring to corruption among law enforcement personnel.

Clashes between government forces and Islamist rebels are common in Dagestan.

Dagestan's neighbour Chechnya was the site of two bloody separatist wars after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and a low-level insurgency persists in the region despite the end of major hostilities.

Aug 26, 2009

Boris Nemtsov: Putin Failed to Pacify the North Caucasus

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By Boris Nemtsov

One of the biggest myths perpetrated by Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine is that during his 10-year rule over Russia, the former president and current prime minister succeeded in “pacifying” the North Caucasus. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we are witnessing today is the start of the third Caucasus war in 15 years, following the two Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999.

There was the June 22 attack on Ingushetia's President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the recent murders of Chechen human-rights activists Natalia Estemirova and Zarema Sadulaeva, and last week's terrorist attack in Nazran, which killed scores and maimed hundreds. Add to these the near-daily attempted murders of police officers in Dagestan (according to the local interior ministry, there have been 128 murder attempts against law-enforcement officials since the beginning of this year alone) and the constant kidnappings in Chechnya (Russian human-rights watchdog Memorial documented 74 kidnappings and 16 killings of Chechen residents between January and June). And this is only an abridged catalogue of the blood spilled in the North Caucasus during the past few months.

There are several reasons why the "pacification" of the region has failed. Vladimir Putin committed a fateful mistake when he struck cynical deals with influential clans in the North Caucasus to keep the region under Moscow's formal control: Federal money and blank checks on lawlessness to often criminal and corrupt local leaders were exchanged for their personal loyalty and support during so-called elections. The result of such deals is that the laws of the Russian Federation no longer apply in the North Caucasus, which is ruled by increasingly repressive regimes.

According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, Chechen authorities practice extrajudicial killings and punitive house-burnings against the relatives of suspected insurgents. Memorial workers and other rights activists in Chechnya point to constant surveillance of their activities by the local authorities. Before she was herself kidnapped and murdered, Estemirova, who worked for Memorial, was investigating the "disappearances" of people in Chechnya.

Meanwhile, the Moscow-installed Chechen leader, Putin friend and former militant Ramzan Kadyrov, has built a veritable personality cult around himself since coming to power in 2007. Moscow continues to supply 70%-90% of the revenue to the regional governments there, but it has failed to extend the writ of Russian law to the Caucasus.

Another important reason for the Kremlin's Caucasus failure is the elimination of democratic procedures. "Elections" in which Mr. Putin and his party receive 100% of the vote on a 100% turnout in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan are a throwback to Soviet times. They have left citizens without any real influence over their governments. The Kremlin's stubborn insistence on retaining former KGB Gen. Murat Zyazikov as president of Ingushetia despite overwhelming local opposition has no doubt greatly contributed to the recent upsurge in violence in that region.

Finally, Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (cheered on by separatists in the North Caucasus) after last year's Georgian war could come back to haunt Moscow. With this action, Mr. Putin and his successor in the Kremlin, Dmitry Medvedev, signaled that threats and blackmail can go a long way in achieving the separatists' goals. If and when the federal government, crippled by the economic crisis, stops its generous flow of money to the corrupt North Caucasus elites, Chechnya, Ingushetia and other republics of the Russian Caucasus may be tempted to follow the path of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The main lesson of recent tragedies is surely that cynicism, brutality and propaganda will not solve the very real political, economic and security problems of the North Caucasus. These problems can only be solved with honest policies based on the rule of law, democracy and respect for the rights of citizens.

—Mr. Nemtsov was deputy prime minister of Russia (1997-1998) and is a leader of the Solidarity opposition movement.