Russia Uses Tough Terror Tactics In Ingushetia

By Tony Halpin in Nazran
September 4, 2009
Courtesy Of The Times Online

The death squad called at the family home shortly after breakfast. Masked soldiers dragged Shamil Makhloyev, 21, from his mother, sister and pregnant wife and killed him in a chicken shed in the backyard.

His family do not know who the soldiers were or why they killed him. For the Kremlin Mr Makhloyev was another dead “terrorist” in its dirty war in Ingushetia.

This tiny Muslim republic, swept up in kidnap, torture, arbitrary killings and suicide bombings, is the new front line in Russia’s struggle to contain a growing anti-government insurgency in the North Caucasus.

Russia has sent thousands of troops to fight what it claims are extremists who want an Islamic caliphate. Monitoring organisations said that although an Islamist element exists, the violence is fuelled by a tradition of blood vengeance for the brutality of Russian special forces.

The Kremlin says it is fighting terrorism but, in reality, it is giving birth to it. People are offended by the kidnapping and killing of their relatives,” said Magomed Mutsolgov, of Mashr, a human rights group in Ingushetia.

Timur Akiyev, the head of the Ingushetia branch of the human rights group Memorial, said: “The new trend in the fight against terror here is to kill a man and then say that he was a terrorist without the necessity to prove that he was.”

Mr Makhloyev’s mother, Mariem Mamilova, and his sister, Hava, insisted that he had no links to terrorism. “Why are there any laws if they can just shoot us in our homes?” Mrs Mamilova said.

The family had risen early for breakfast before the daily fast for Ramadan when about 40 armed troops, with no identifying insignia, burst into their house in Ordzhonikidze two weeks ago. “One soldier radioed in that they had found three women and a man. A reply came back to kill him,” Mrs Mamilova said. “They took Shamil into the yard and we heard two shots.”

Human rights groups say that Ingushetia is a legal black hole. The anti-terror forces are under the control of the Kremlin and Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the President of Ingushetia, has no authority to rein them in.

“There is blood vengeance in the Caucasus. People see that the State doesn’t make any effort to punish the guilty so they take matters into their own hands,” Mr Mutsolgov said. In a region with up to 80 per cent unemployment despair was pushing young men towards radicalism, he added.

The murder rate has risen from 96 in 2006 to 250 so far this year. An oppressive atmosphere cloaks Ingushetia as tanks and troops guard fortified checkpoints along main roads, trying to spot suicide bombers.

A policeman fired several shots when The Times approached a checkpoint after a car failed to stop outside the town of Nazran. The police station is a wreck after a suicide bomber killed 21 people and injured 138 last month.

Human rights groups in Moscow warned this week that the death squads would trigger a civil war in Ingushetia and the neighbouring republics of Chechnya and Dagestan.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said: “In the end we will lose the North Caucasus. The Russian President doesn’t wish this, of course, but he has no control over his own security forces.”