A VOW by notorious Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov to hunt down militants in the neighbouring Russian republic of Ingushetia could lead to chaos in the North Caucasus, according to experts on the volatile region and Ingush officials.
Mr Kadyrov, whose men are accused of using kidnapping, torture and murder to crush Chech-nya’s own rebels, has pledged to send forces into Ingushetia to find and kill the men who tried to assassinate Ingush president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, in a car bomb attack last week.
After meeting Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Mr Kadyrov said: “He told me to intensify actions . . . including in Ingushetia. I will personally control the operations . . . and I am sure in the near future there will be good results.”
In talks in Ingushetia with local officials, he added: “We will conduct our investigation in line with the law of the mountains, and our revenge for Yunus-Bek Yevkurov will be ruthless.” With the Ingush leader fighting for his life in a Moscow hospital, the road appears open for Mr Kadyrov to extend his influence beyond his native Chechnya, where Moscow has declared its anti-terrorist operations officially over.
But Mr Kadyrov’s reputation for brutality, the intensifying violence in Ingushetia and nearby Dagestan and the long and bloody history of ethnic and clan rivalry in the Caucasus have caused Ingush officials and regional experts to warn of the dangers inherent in Mr Kadyrov’s involvement.
“Order in Ingushetia must be brought by the Ingush alone,” insisted Musa Pliyev, an aide to Mr Yevkurov.
Ruslan Aushev, who led Ingushetia from 1992-2001, said the deployment of “neighbouring forces would further entangle the situation there . . . If they want to complicate the situation, then this is what you do.”
Mr Yevkurov has been credited with rebuilding trust between the Ingush people and their administration since last autumn, when he replaced Murat Zyazikov, whose regime was accused of cruelty and corruption. But Mr Yevkurov’s popularity has failed to halt a rise in killings of policemen and officials by militants who, Moscow claims, have links to Islamist extremists such as al-Qaeda.
“This attack can benefit Ramzan, who can now say he is the only man whose policy works and therefore ask for control of the Caucasus as a whole,” said analyst Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.
“If he obtains this, then the whole region could explode.”
