The editor, Hussein Shadiev, was shot in the shoulder while driving between his office at Serdalo newspaper and his home late on Monday.

Local police say they are still searching for the assailants. “We don’t have any details yet, but we can say that, at the moment when Shadiev was traveling in Nazran down one of the city streets in his automobile, he was shot from an unknown weapon. It’s possible that the shooting was done from a pistol with a suppressor, because nobody heard the shot,” a source from Ingush law enforcement told RIA Novosti.

The source added that the bullet had grazed the editor’s shoulder and he had been hospitalized, but that his life was not in any danger.

“Republic President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov knows about the incident, law enforcement agencies are taking all necessary measures to establish the circumstances of the incident and to carry out an investigation,” acting presidential press secretary Bers Yevloyev told Kommersant newspaper. In his words, it was too early to say anything detailed about the attack. “In my recollection this is probably the first case where local journalists have been attacked,” said Yevloyev.

Shadiev’s colleagues say the attack could have been a reaction to an anti-corruption article published in the newspaper. “Yes, we didn’t carry out our own journalistic investigation, we don’t have the strength for that, but we gave publicity to incidents of corruption that were uncovered by law enforcement agencies, and somebody may not have liked that,” said Serdalo editorial deputy Yakub Sultygov.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty repots:

More than a dozen people have been killed in an explosion in the Russian republic of North Ossetia that officials say was the work of a suicide car bomber.

The midday explosion took place in a busy central market in the local capital of Vladikavkaz. Grisly video footage from the site showed dead bodies lying unattended in pools of blood and frantic doctors carrying injured victims in their arms.

Officials variously put the death toll at 14 or 15. It was unclear if the bomber was included in either figure. At least 80 others were reported injured in the blast, including a number of young children.

Officials in North Ossetia and Moscow say the explosion was the result of a suicide bomber who parked a car packed with explosives near the market entrance.

The Interfax news agency quotes the North Ossetian Interior Ministry as saying the Volga car involved in the bombing had a number plate from the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office, said a terrorism investigation had been launched into the attack.

A second explosive that failed to detonate was later detected at the entrance to the market.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the car-bomb attack. Speaking during a meeting with the chairman of Russia’s Union of Muftis, Putin said the bombing was “aimed at sowing enmity between our citizens,” and he expected Russian Muslims to make a “decisive contribution” to combating extremism.

The North Caucasus has been a growing source of concern for the Kremlin, as Islamic extremism and violent attacks continue to rise.

A suicide car-bomb attack on September 4 at a Russian Army base in Daghestan left at least five people dead, and came just days after an assassination attempt on a local Daghestan official.

Many local authorities say endemic poverty and the presence of hostile Russian security forces have contributed to the general unrest.

North Ossetia, which is predominantly Orthodox Christian, has generally seen less violence than other North Caucasus republics. But it is notorious as the site of the Beslan school siege tragedy, in which more than 330 children and adults were killed in September 2004.

North Ossetia also has its own history of bomb attacks. Alan Tskhurbayev, a former correspondent with RFE/RL’s Russian Service, spoke to RFE/RL from the scene of the blast.

“It’s necessary to say that this isn’t the first blast in the Vladikavkaz central market. It’s been the site of frequent explosions, starting in 1999, when 52 people were killed here,” Tskhurbayev said. “If memory serves, this is already the fourth blast here, or something close to it.”

Today’s market blast comes 11 years to the day after a bomb destroyed an apartment block in the Russian capital Moscow, killing 94 people.

The Kremlin blamed the blast on Chechen militants and used the incident and subsequent blasts as a pretext for initiating a second federal war in Chechnya.

In an address to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Saturday, FSB Chief Aleksandr Bortnikov said that genetic and material evidence indicates that notorious Caucasian gang leader Sheikh Said Buryatsky took part in the November 2009 bombing of the Nevsky Express.

After investigators established that Buryatsky’s group was likely involved in the attack, the FSB conducted a raid in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo on March 2 – 3, in which eight militants were killed and ten were detained. Buryatsky, whose real name is Aleksandr Tikhomirov, was among those killed, reportedly having put up armed resistance to the police.

A search of the militants’ basement laboratory turned up more than a ton of explosives, as well as firearms and ammunition, Bortnikov added.

The bombing of the Nevsky Express, which federal authorities labeled as an act of terrorism, killed 26 passengers and injured approximately 90 on the luxury train. Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov had originally taken responsibility for the bombing.

Russia’s railroad directorate and manufacturers of the railway cars on the Nevsky Express have come under criticism for their flimsily constructed seats, many of which came loose during the explosion and flew down to the end of the cars, trapping and maiming passengers. While both parties have refuted the claims, the cars on the Nevsky Express have been changed nevertheless.

Public transportation in Russia has been targeted by Chechen separatists for a number of years. Sixty people were injured in an analogous attack on the Nevsky Express in August 2007. Fifteen people were injured in the 2005 bombing of a train headed to Moscow from Chechnya, and a suicide attack in the Moscow metro killed 41 and injured approximately 120 in 2004.

Ibragim Yevloyev, of no relation to his victim, was the former police officer sentenced late last year to two years in a penal colony for what was ruled to be the “accidental” killing of Magomed Yevloyev.

Relatives of the slain opposition leader had filed a complaint on December 11, 2009, demanding that the court give Yevloyev a harsher sentence. They maintain that Yevloyev was murdered intentionally, and his father, Yakhya Yevloyev, has been particularly outspoken. In a December interview with Gazeta.ru, Yakhya asserted that the light sentence had been a result of pressure on the judge from former Internal Minister Musa Medov, an uncle of the accused officer.

“Judge Tumgoyev admitted to me that Medov called and asked him not to punish his nephew,” Yakhya said at the time.

Instead, the Ingush High Court decided on Tuesday to swap the part of the Russian criminal article that Yevloyev was found guilty of for another part of the same article. Now, instead of being officially guilty of “negligent homicide owing to the improper discharge by a person of his professional duties,” he is only guilty of “negligent homicide.” The change results in a much lighter sentence – two years of house arrest.

Human rights groups have stood with Magomed Yevloyev’s relatives since the murder in mid-2008 in maintaining that the killing was intentional and the criminal investigation a sham. The family’s lawyer, Musa Pliyev, has been attempting to initiate proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In light of a chain of murders of Ingush oppositionists that followed Yevloyev’s killing, Pliyev said he is convinced that authorities have issued “a license to shoot down other human rights advocates.”

Magomed Yevloyev was the founder and owner of Ingushetia.ru, an opposition website based in Russia’s volatile Caucasian republic of the same name. On August 31, 2008, Yevloyev wound up by coincidence on the same airplane as Murat Zyazikov, Ingushetia’s notoriously corrupt then-president. A quarrel allegedly broke out, and, upon landing, Yevloyev was detained and dragged into a car. His personal guards attempted to chase the motorcade, but Magomed had already been shot in the temple inside the police vehicle.

The website was then taken over by Ingush oppositionist Maksharip Aushev, who was murdered by unknown assailants last October.

Fatima Dzhaniyeva was driving with her mother and two brothers in the Ingush city of Nazran when their car suddenly exploded.

Dzhaniyeva, who is pregnant, and one of her brothers were hospitalized with heavy wounds, while her mother and second brother died at the scene.

Investigators believe that the attempted assassination may be connected with the murder of her husband, opposition activist Maksharip Aushev, in October.

One investigator said that a bomb had been placed under the driver’s seat either directly inside of the car or within the undercarriage.

“It’s obvious that it was a well planned assassination attempt,” said the investigator.

Maksharip Aushev was gunned down in his car by unknown assailants in the Kabardino-Balkaria territory of the Northern Caucasus on October 25. He died at the scene. His cousin, Tauzela Dzeitova, was hospitalized with heavy wounds, but passed away on December 6.

Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, an incident that he blames on the republic’s security forces. His colleague, former Ingushetia.org editor Magomed Yevloyev, was murdered in August 2008. Aushev had been determined to form an opposition movement that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucuses.

Ibragim Yevloyev, of no relation to his victim, was sentenced on Friday in the Karabulak City Court in Ingushetia. He was not present for the decision. The court ruled that the murder was accidental and had occurred due to the officer’s “carelessness.”

Relatives of Magomed say that they are contesting the court’s decision, but his father, Yakhya Yevloyev, said that “I know that it won’t change anything radically.” He explained the light sentence as the result of pressure on the judge from former Internal Minister Musa Medov, the uncle of the accused officer.

“Judge Tumgoyev admitted to me that Medov called and asked him not to punish his nephew,” Yakhya told journalists.

Magomed Yevloyev was murdered on August 31, 2008, not long after arriving at the Magas Airport in Ingushetia from Moscow. By accidental coincidence, he had wound up on the same plane as Murat Zyazikov, the profoundly corrupt ex-president of Ingushetia who was fired by the Kremlin two months after the killing. A quarrel allegedly broke out on the plane, and upon arrival Yevloyev was detained and dragged into a car, a scene witnessed by Magomed’s friends and relatives who had come to greet him at the airport. His personal guards attempted to chase the motorcade, but Magomed had already been shot in the temple inside the police vehicle.

The person who shot Magomed Yevloyev turned out to be Ibragim Yevloyev, Medov’s nephew and chief of security. According to police, Magomed had been detained in order to be brought in for questioning related to a case in which he was a witness. They say a fight broke out in the vehicle when Magomed tried to resist, and that Ibragim accidentally shot him when Magomed attempted to take the officer’s weapon.

The investigator who signed the order to bring Magomed in for questioning says that he only did so under the orders of his superiors, and not until after Magomed had already died.

Friends and relatives of Magomed, as well as human rights groups, insist that the case had been a sham from the beginning, since the murder was intentional and had been ordered by Zyazikov. The family’s lawyer, Musa Pliyev, is attempting to initiate proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In light of a chain of murders of oppositionists in Ingushetia that followed Yevloyev’s killing, Pliyev says he is convinced that authorities had issued “a license to shoot down other human rights advocates.”

Pliyev has asked Strasbourg to make the case a priority, so that relevant documents might be presented before authorities have a chance to destroy them. While he is also contesting Friday’s decision in the court in Karabulak, the lawyer expressed certainty that it would not be successful.

Another lawyer and anonymous source told Gazeta.ru that any reliance on the Russian court system would be futile. “I said from the very beginning that there was no point in waiting for the court’s decision on this case. The case has not been uncovered, and the investigation did not answer the main questions – who ordered the murder, what was the motive, and so on.”

The lawyer added that the responsibility for these failings lay with the government’s investigative agencies. “Of course, now we can disparage the court,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want to blame the court. While the courts in our country are dependent on the government authorities, this is what their decisions are going to be.”

Tauzela Dzeitova was a cousin of the former activist, and was with him when Aushev’s car was sprayed with machine gun fire in the Kabardino-Balkaria territory of the Northern Caucasus on October 25.

Aushev died on the scene from bullet wounds, while Dzeitova was heavily wounded. Doctors at the Kabardino-Balkaria state hospital performed five operations on Dzeitova, but classified her condition as serious. She regained consciousness at the end of October, but investigators refrained from questioning due to her fragile condition.

With the death of Dzeitova, there remain no known witnesses to the attack.

Maksharip Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, an incident that he blames on the republic’s security forces. His colleague, former Ingushetia.org editor Magomed Yevloyev, was murdered in August 2008. Aushev had been determined to form an opposition movement that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucuses.

The Ingush President has pledged full support for the investigation, but his ability to control the violence in Ingushetia is in doubt.

The Russian republic of Ingushetia borders Chechnya in the North Caucasus. Ingush security forces in charge of controlling spillover insurgent violence are blamed for hundreds of kidnappings and extrajudicial murders, but are rarely investigated.

“They killed this man two hours ago, but he walks among us here on film.”
Yulia Latynina
October 26, 2009
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

On Sunday, October 25, 2009, in the North Caucasian city of Nalchik, one of the most influential people in the Republic of Ingushetia was killed – Maksharip Aushev; the killers peppered his car with machine guns. It happened on the day after Maksharip appeared on Marianna Maksimovskaya’s REN TV news show and gave a piercing indictment of former republic president Murat Zyazikov.

“Nobody has established yet who to suspect,” said Yakhya Aushev, Maksharip’s father. “You could get bogged down in the fact that he just recently was speaking out against Zyazikov. Not long ago, a team from REN TV was photographing their [the Zyazikovs’] mansions, and there was an incident with Ruslanbek Zyazikov. It was as if there were forces hunting him down.”

Ruslanbek Zyazikov is the cousin and former chief security detail of former president Zyazikov.

“I have a feeling it’s because of us,” says Marianna Maksimovskaya. “Maksharip saved our film crew literally ten days ago.”

Leonid Kanfer’s film crew was shooting a story in Ingushetia on the corruption of the former president. Among other things, they filmed their mansions in the village of Barsuki. When the film crew returned to the hotel, armed men came for them.

“They beat up the driver. Ruslanbek Zyazikov beat him personally,” said Maksimovskaya. “Our journalists called Maksharip, he arrived by himself, drew out a Stechkin [automatic pistol], and in Ruslanbek’s eyes brought out our cameraman and correspondent to the presidential administration, where they their testimony was taken.”

On Maksimovskaya’s program, Maksharip had said that the republic’s old leadership gave money to militants and sabotaged the actions of the new president; he gave as an example the fate of Construction Minister Ruslan Amerkhanov. According to Maksharip, he was appointed by new president Yevkurov and shot in his own office after refusing to continue business as usual.

Two hours after Maksharip’s murder, a rerun was aired of “The Week with Marianna Maksimovskaya.” “They killed a man, but he walks among us here on film.”

Two people managed to remove former President Zyazikov: the first owner of Ingushetia.ru, Magomed Yevloyev, and the second owner of the site, Maksharip Aushev. Both are dead.

Warnings and Tanks

The site Ingushetiaru.org had reported on September 12 about plans to murder Maksharip. “The would-be murder was commissioned to a member of one of the ORB-2 units to be committed at the moment of Aushev’s departure outside the republic,” the site asserted [ORB-2 (Operations and Search Bureau) is a federal police bureau in Chechnya accused of flagrant and widespread violations of the law, including torture of civilian detainees].

Maksharip was stopped three days later on September 15 at the post office, alongside which stood federal BTR tanks and Gazelle light trucks. Men from the BTR attempted to apprehend Maksharip, but were beat off by friends and chance bystanders – including the vice chairman of the government of the republic.

Having barely escaped, Maksharip phoned the president of the republic, Yunus-bek Yevkurov. The president called the security forces to a meeting the next day. It became clear that the BTR had been placed so as to not fall within view of any cameras. However, authorities now assert that had been a routine security check, and that Maksharip, who had been warned about plans of an attempt on his life, simply lost his nerves. Furthermore, he for some reason presented the Russian inspectors with his son’s identification, and not his own.

Forty days later he was shot.

How Maksharip Became Engaged in Politics

Maksharip Aushev was not a professional politician. He became engaged in politics after a “death squad” abducted his nephew Magomed on June 17, 2007. Magomed was taken out to the forest, tortured by being shot point-blank while standing in a waist-deep hole (first being outfitted with two bulletproof vests), and then freed upon signing an agreement of cooperation. Instead of cooperating, Magomed submitted a written statement to the prosecutor’s office.

After that, Magomed was of course doomed, and was abducted once again on September 18, 2007. As he had been together in the car with Maksharip’s son – his cousin – both were abducted.

They were tortured for several hours in the Chechnyan village of Goyty, and afterwards brought to the mountains for “snickers” – a practice in which a murdered corpse is bound with explosives and blown up; animals eat up the scattered pieces of meat, and the person disappears without a trace.

While they were being tortured, however, Maksharip assembled a rally in the city of Nazran. The authorities spooked and freed the Aushev boys.

Maksharip began to investigate who had abducted his son and nephew, and determined that it was Urus-Martan District Department of Interior Ministry Chief Ramzan Dzhamalkhanov, who it appears was acting on order of the Ingush Interior Minister Musa Medov – in any event, it was after a personal phone call from Medov to Dzhamalkhanov that the boys were freed.

Whatever the relationship was between the Aushev family and regional militants (and at that time, thanks to the activity of president Zyazikov and his “death squads,” the militants had sympathy or approval from practically everyone besides their targets), it is important to note that Maksharip was actually a legal oppositionist. He did not run off to search through the forest; he investigated the kidnapping of his son, made the results public, and demanded the resignation of Zyazikov. He did what befits a father and a man, and he would not have gotten into politics if politics had not gotten into him.

In the Caucasus, where yesterday’s terrorists now lead anti-terrorism detachments, where family ties mean more than beliefs, and reputation means even more than family ties, Maksharip was one of the central figures in negotiations between the authorities and the militants; or at that time, if I may, between the authorities and the people.

As a legal oppositionist, Maksharip was a thorn in the side of the authorities. He was arrested on February 14, 2008, and the circumstances of this arrest were truly fantastical. Several dozen people accompanied by two BTR tanks arrived at Aushev’s village of Surkhakh, incinerated the house of his brother with a grenade launcher, and sat in wait for Maksharip to arrive on the scene. Maksharip did come, but so many people were with him that the men decided not to arrest him. They sat in ambush until evening, when Maksharip returned alone.

The authorities, however, made a strategic mistake: they had not dared to kill Maksharip immediately upon his arrest. The plan fell to pieces. This mistake was corrected for the following notorious murder – that of Maksharip’s friend and ally, Ingushetia.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev.

The Murder of Magomed Yevloyev

On August 31, 2008, Ingushetia.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev flew from Moscow to Ingushetia and by accidental coincidence wound up sitting in business class with President Zyazikov.

A quarrel arose between Zyazikov and Yevloyev, and Yevloyev left for a different cabin. According to the investigation undertaken by Yevloyev’s relatives, President Zyazikov called his chief of security and cousin Ruslanbek Zyazikov immediately after the argument and ordered him to take care of Magomed.

Ruslanbek then set out to find Ibragim Yevloyev, chief of security for Interior Minister Musa Medov, who had been at a wedding at the house of Medov’s uncle. Ruslanbek, Musa and Ibragim met Magomed Yevloyev at the airport; Magomed was dragged out of the cabin and put in a Volga armored car.

Seeing what was going on, Yevloyev’s armed followers – who were also Aushev’s – took off after him, but went for the wrong part of the motorcade. They were able to cut two armored Volgas away from the motorcade, dragged out Medov’s guards, and began to beat them. They cried out that “the blood is not on us!” which Aushev thought referred to the guards’ previously victims. In fact, it referred to Magomed Yevloyev. It seems that Ibragim Yevloyev shot Magomed in cold blood in the temple even before the motorcade left the airport.

The investigation of this murder itself became possible when the victim’s father, Yakhya Yevloyev, declared blood vengeance on Zyazikov. Almost immediately, participants of the murder, including the chief of police and President Zyazikov himself, came out of the woodwork and began dumping blame for the crime on each other. Topping of the list of Yevloyev’s murderers, published on Ingushetia.org, is Ingush President Murat Zyazikov.

Ten days after Magomed Yevloyev’s murder, Ruslan Zyazikov’s brother Bekkhan was shot by unknown assailants. It is important to note that Ruslan Zyazikov is the son of Uruskhan Zyazikov, who was kidnapped by militants on March 23, 2007. It was precisely after this abduction that “death squads” began abducting anyone who could possibly be to blame. A five million dollars ransom was apparently paid for Uruskhan.

The murder of Magomed Yevloyev was more than the Kremlin could tolerate. Zyazikov was removed two months later, and named in his place was Yunus-bek Yevkurov.

Yevkurov’s Appointment

That there is disorder and lawlessness in Ingushetia has long since been obvious. But the depth of the rot that was discovered when Yevkurov’s took office simply cannot be described. Ingushetia.org reported, for example, on the following incident: in December of last year in the central mosque of Nazran, around three thousand people had gathered, demanding that Ruslanbek Zyazikov return stolen budget money and swear on the Koran that he had not given the money to militants. Ruslanbek did not go to the mosque, but he did admit to a crowd that showed up outside his house that he had paid militants thirty million rubles a month to not harm his relatives.

The strategy of the new president was utterly severe: forgive those who may be forgiven, and kill those who had ought to be killed. And no corruption.

Yevkurov’s strategy split the opposition. Oppositionist Kaloy Akhilgov became press secretary for the new president. But oppositionist Magomed Khazbiev, a close friend of Maksharip, continued to indict Yevkurov as a murderer.

The strategy split not only the opposition, but also the militants and the security forces. Paradoxically, these latter two implacable opponents had one thing in common: they both favored a continuation of uncontrolled violence – the militants, because it builds a base for Islamic revolution, and the security forces, because it makes it so easy to earn stars for one’s uniform. They, as well as others still, needed for the deciding tool in the republic to be the axe of the slaughterer, not the knife of the surgeon. For them, violence that was targeted or deemed necessary would not be sufficient.

If militants have left Zyazikov untouched (which you’d figure, for 30 million rubles a month), then Yevkurov, having taken it upon himself to root out corruption and uncontrolled violence, now faces assassination attempts that have befallen him as if from a bucket. The first of these attempts was preceded by a fully incomprehensible – but undoubtedly very historically important – special operation on December 6, 2008. On that day in the town of Barsuki, another Magomed Aushev (please excuse the abundance of Aushevs in this story), right-hand man of the chief of Ingush militants in the village of Magas, was killed. Although actually, while Aushev was thought to be dead, he was really hiding in Barsuki (Zyazikov’s native city). He also at that time apparently had negotiations with President Yevkurov concerning possible surrender, as well as about a meeting that Maksharip Aushev would mediate.

Because of these negotiations, word spread by phone that Magomed Aushev had been killed by federal troops, who subsequently killed his brother Adam. Militants grabbed hold of the incident to blame the “kafir and apostates” of Yevkurov in the entire matter, and assassination attempts came one after another. It was a miracle that the heavily wounded Yevkurov survived after guards dragged him from his blazing car in June.

While Yevkurov lay in the hospital, a suicide bomber blew up a local police station in Nazran. The terrorist act shocked the Kremlin. Medvedev fired then-new Ingush Police Chief Meyriev and appointed Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev as coordinator for all security agencies in the Caucasus. The appointment was very strange, considering the reputation Yedelev enjoyed in the Caucasus. He is considered a man close to Chechen President Kadyrov and a patron of Musa Medov, that same former Ingush Chief of Police who figures in at number two after President Zyazikov on the list of Magomed Yevloyev’s murderers.

The murder of Maksharip Aushev is testimony to the fact that, aside from obvious discrepancies between Ingush President Yevkurov and the militants on the creation of a Caucasus Emirate, there exists another less obvious but very deep discrepancy between President Yevkurov and part of the former elite – the part wanting violence and impunity.

The murder of Maksharip Aushev is not one of those murders where everything is immediately clear. Like Yakhya Yevloyev, father of the murdered Magomed, said to me on Sunday: “Tomorrow, information should come out.” But this is a landmark murder. Whether or not President Yevkurov can find Maksharip Aushev’s murderers will determine who is in control of the republic. And for Yevkurov, this question is one of life and death – politically and literally.

The source of Aushev’s fears was backed by colleague Musa Pliev, aid to the Ingush president and representative of the family of another slain oppositionist. According to Pliev, the current murder investigation must change its focus to consider a political motive. The five possible motives outlined by authorities, which Pliev called “absurd and baseless,” include criminal associations, promises of aid to demonstrators who faced possible prosecution, and an extramarital affair. Pliev asserts out that Aushev was never associated with any criminals, and that the demonstrators Aushev supposedly promised to help have long since been freed. The woman he is accused of having an affair with is a cousin, and was a passenger with Aushev when their car was sprayed with machine gun fire on Sunday.

Ingush President Yunus-bek Yevkurov blames the murder on the republic’s security forces. In an October 26 interview on the Echo Moskvy radio station, Yevkurov said that he took the news of the murder “with severity,” that the crime aimed to destabilize the republic, and that it had been directed against him personally. The president has pledged to put all possible resources behind the investigation.

According to Yevkurov, the leaders of the republic had nothing to do with the murder.

While Aushev supported Yevkurov’s efforts, he had lost faith in the president months before he was killed.

According to Aushev’s writings, President Yevkurov “has fallen under the influence of the security forces, which have continued these six months [since he assumed power] to abduct, torture, and kill people…not a single time did he speak of how the tyranny of the security forces was inadmissible, but with their own actions they made clear who was in charge.”

Tatyana Lokshina, Deputy Director of the Human Rights Watch Moscow bureau, agrees that the murder calls into question Yevkurov’s ability to protect the pluralism in the republic that he supports. She stated that citizen activism had become “practically a form of suicide” in the Northern Caucuses, and called on the Kremlin to act.

The Kremlin installed Yevkurov as president of Ingushetia after removing grossly unpopular Murat Zyazikov a year ago this week. Zyazikov and his family face personal and financial ruin if the Prosecutor General decides to bring criminal charges of embezzlement.

Aushev’s murder marks at least the fifth activist killing in the Northern Caucuses this year alone, in a region plagued by government corruption and violence. Security forces in charge of controlling the insurgent violence spilling over from neighboring Chechnya are widely accused of abductions and extrajudicial killings that remain largely uninvestigated. As of July of this year, 170 persons have been kidnapped in Ingushetia, and while abductions have recently lessened, murders have increased. Magomed Yevloyev, former head of Ingushetia.ru (since changed to Ingushetia.org) and close ally of Aushev, was shot and killed by security forces while detained on August 31, 2008.

Maksharip Aushev’s car was shot with approximately sixty bullets as he and cousin Tauzela Dzeitova drove through the Kabardino-Balkaria territory in the Northern Caucasus on October 25. He died in his car of bullet wounds, while Dzeitova was hospitalized and has undergone several operations. He had been the victim of a failed kidnapping attempt on September 15 shortly after leaving a meeting with government authorities.

Aushev was a prominent businessman in the Russian republic of Ingushetia who turned to activism after his son and nephew were abducted in 2007, which he blames on the republic’s security forces. He had been determined to form an opposition that would use all lawful methods to stop bloodshed in the troubled North Caucus region. More than two thousand people attended his funeral on October 26.

Journalist Yulia Latynina comments on the assassination attempt against Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of the Republic of Ingushetia.  Yevkurov, 45, is in serious condition, with a concussion and broken ribs, after a suicide bomber attacked his motorcade.  Two bodyguards were killed in the explosion.

The attack is a bloody reminder that violence continues unabated in Russia’s North Caucasus region.  Yevkurov, a former military intelligence officer, has served as president since October 2008, when the former President, Murat Zyazikov, was dismissed by the Kremlin.  Ingushetia had seen a gradual escalation of armed insurgency under Zyazikov’s six years in office, and Yevkurov was seen as a reformer intent on reining in heavy-handed police units and stabilizing the republic.

Latynina’s comments first appeared on the Grani.ru online newspaper (Rus).

Yulia Latynina:

What happened can be considered the start of the militants’ summer campaign.  This is a sign that [Yunus-Bek] Yevkurov represents a serious threat to the militants.  That he is actually fighting them.  And he is simultaneously fighting them on three fronts: first – he is actually rooting out corruption, which is also a resource base for the militants, because all of [Murat] Zyazikov’s officials paid the militants.  This isn’t a rumor, this isn’t libel, this is what the officials themselves admitted in the mosques when Zyazikov was dismissed.  They spread their arms and said: yes, we paid, or we would have been killed.

It is worth understanding that to be a militant in Ingushetia is a fairly lucrative business;  not so lucrative, of course, as robbing the budget, but lucrative enough.  So that besides Allah’s work, there are completely concrete material concerns and completely concrete problems that arise for the militants when their resource base dries up because of President Yevkurov.

Second: Yevkurov is actually hitting the militants with precision strikes.  Unlike the previous situation, when the siloviki said they hit a militant whenever they shot at anyone.  Now, one can only say that when Yevkurov travels out of Ingushetia, the siloviki just might shoot the wrong person: when the cat is away, the mice will play.  But Yevkurov strictly controls all operations, and I have a hard time remembering an incident where a person not connected with the militants was killed in the past two months.

Third: negotiations were held with the militants, explaining that those with the desire to could either return to a peaceful life or leave.  Clearly, neither the militant leadership nor the siloviki are happy with this.  It is hard to say who is less happy as result.  I’d like to mention an episode, from when the assassination attempts on Yevkurov began – in December 2008, when Yevkurov was supposed to meet with a person names Magomed Aushev – the right-hand man of the Ingush militants from [the city of] Magas.  This was preceded by other meetings between Yevkurov and militants or their representatives.  He went to these meetings either alone or with his brother – such is the man’s withdrawn courage, because it’s clear that the militants could simply shoot him.  He was supposed to meet, as far as I know, with Magomed Aushev.  Intensive radio traffic started in connection with this, because Aushev was believed dead, but in actual fact was hiding in Barsuki.  And during the meeting with the president, the siloviki took him out.  And literally a month and a half afterwards, three militants entered Ingushetia with a ton of explosives, to arrange for a major terrorist attack.  By all appearances, they planned to blow up the president along with everyone else.  They were discovered by accident.

Yevkurov is actually fighting the militants extremely actively, which is much more complicated for him that for [Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov].  Because Kadyrov is a person who knows all the militants, and can say: “Guys, that’s it.  Why don’t you work for me once again.”  Yevkurov can’t say this.  Furthermore, Kadyrov was up against militants who fought for Chechnya’s freedom, while Yevkurov is up against Wahhabis, who are fighting in exultation of Allah.  It really is much harder for him.  Aside from militants, Yevkurov must somehow restrain the appetites of the Russian siloviki, who are completely discontent when they are forced to work on dangerous tactical goals instead of receiving stars for mass murder.

Under these conditions, Yevkurov, in my opinion, did much more for Ingushetia that could have been expected.  Much less than is needed, because there is an extremely neglected situation there, but more than could be expected.

translation by theotherrussia.org