Speaking at a meeting dedicated to the work of law enforcement agencies in the North Caucasian Federal District, Prosecutor General Deputy Ivan Sydoruk said that the number of attacks in the region was up 100 percent in 2010.

The rise comes despite 30 counter-terrorism operations carried out in the North Caucasus in 2010, in which more than 300 militants, including 17 prominent leaders, were neutralized. In addition, police had confiscated 1,665 firearms, 91846 rounds of ammunition, more than 1200 kilograms of explosives and more than 110 explosive devices from weapons trafficking circles.

The admission by the prosecutor general’s office follows conflicting statements by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and leaders in Chechnya and Ingushetia over the success of counter-terrorism operations in the North Caucasus.

During a November 19 meeting on comprehensive measures to ensure stability in the volatile region, President Medvedev said that information presented to him indicating an improvement in the criminal situation was “nonsense.” “I have no faith in these statistics, they’re often nonsense,” said the president. He also said that the operative situation in the Caucasus “has practically not improved.”

In response, Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov issued a joint statement saying that President Medvedev was incorrect.

“The president said that it was ‘nonsense.’ But it’s clear to us that that’s not the case,” said Yevkurov. In an interview with Interfax, Kadyrov said he could not rule out the possibility that militants had been eradicated from Chechnya altogether.

In his turn, Russian Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said last week that the number of terrorist threats in Russia remains high.

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

Ingushetia, a primarily Muslim republic bordering Chechnya, has seen rising levels of violence, and the situation has been described as a “slow civil war” by the region’s former president. Rights experts have said that a tense face-off between the public, military forces and Islamic insurgents threatens the stability of all of Russia.

Zyazikov, who was in office for over six years, said his resignation was “absolutely voluntary,” and connected with a transfer to a new post. “I will work in Moscow,” he added.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, did not immediately release an official reason.

Ingushetia’s political opposition has been calling for Zyazikov’s resignation for years, saying that freedoms were curtailed during his tenure.

Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, a deputy chief of staff of the Volga-Ural Military District, has been named the republic’s the acting president.