DEPRIVING EXTREMISM OF ITS TRUMP CARDS

It is as if the recent explosions in Russia returned it to the era of major acts of terrorism.  The disturbances of late 2009 have dispelled illusions of victory over the terrorists.  At the same time, they proved once again that checking the blight of terrorism is impossible without eradicating its causes.

The crash, on 27 November, of the Nevskiy Ekspress train which was travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg came as a shock to the Russians.  The blast, by an improvised explosive device with the equivalent of 7 kg of TNT derailed three carriages.  26 passengers died and another 130 were wounded.  The following day, while investigators were working on the site, yet another explosion took place - the device was detonated by mobile phone.  Aleksandr Bastryking, head of the Russian Federation Prosecutor's Office Investigative Committee was concussed.  The "wave" of terrorism continued 3 days later.  An explosive device was detonated in Dagestan, as the Tyumen-Baku train passed by.  The train went over the damaged rails but, luckily, no one was hurt.

There was no shortage of theories about who was behind these tragic events, especially as very different groups claimed responsibility.  First to claim responsibility was a neo-Nazi group Combat-18, but investigators immediately ruled out the possibility of its participation in the Nevskiy Express crash because, according to their information, the group ceased to exist back in 2007, when its leader Maksim Martsinkevich, nicknamed Tesak [Hatchet], was arrested.

A theory incorporating a traditional "component" of Russian terrorism emerged soon enough.  A statement by the so-called "Command of the Mujahedin of the Caucasus" that the terrorist action was carried out on orders from Doku Umarov, who gained notoriety during the Chechen military campaigns, helped.  The operation was presumably carried out as part of the early-2009 plan to conduct acts of sabotage against strategically important targets in Russia, including power relay lines, oil and gas pipelines.  Although the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs dismissed the statement as a bluff, federal investigators apparently preferred precisely this "Chechen connection."

The next "wave" of terrorism swept across Ingushetia.  On 17 December, two tragic events took place in Nazran.  On Zyazikov Street, gunmen opened fire on a car containing Federal Security Service Department officers, two of whom were killed.  And, a few hours earlier, a traffic police roadblock on the Kavkaz federal motorway was blown up.  A suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a car he was driving.  He was later identified as Batyr Dzhaniyev, 23, a resident of Ingushetia.  23 people died in the explosion, including 8 military service personnel, 3 traffic police officers of the Ingushetian Internal Affairs Ministry and seven civilians.

The latest developments once again gave rise to discussions on the further deterioration in the situation in the North Caucasus.  In 9 months of 2009, more than 420 people (4 times more than in the corresponding period of 2008) were killed in terrorist attacks in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.  According to the Prosecutor's Office Investigative Committee, there were 513 acts of terrorism in the North Caucasus, which was 57% more than in 2008.  High-level government and police officials, military officers, politicians and judges were targeted by the "mujahedin."  An attempt against the new Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, which he survived by a miracle - he was wounded when a car full of explosives was blown up near him - caused much fuss.  In the autumn of 2009, a whole series of terrorist attacks took place against the gas pipelines which run across Dagestan.

One gets the impression that these actions were aimed at confirming an opinion which has gained currency of late:  Moscow is losing control of the situation in the Caucasus.  The crash of the Nevskiy Ekspress was the first major act of sabotage during the presidential tenure of Dmitriy Medvedev, who described it in his address to the Federal Assembly not so long ago as the "most serious domestic political problem in the country."  Meanwhile, the endless violence may be aimed directly at Medvedev, who might be accused of be unable to keep the situation under control.  It is not surprising that immediately after the explosion of the Nevskiy Ekspress, the Russian media began to write about a crisis in the "tandemocracy" which has evolved in the country and which, they say, will launch a process to return Vladimir Putin to presidential office.  The media recall that Putin's first accession to the presidential post took place immediately after explosions in houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999.  And now, almost two and a half years before the next presidential election in the Russian Federation, the Russians might begin to miss a protector, a role the incumbent prime minister could easily play, some Russian media say.

It is notable that Putin himself linked the explosion of the Nevskiy Ekspress with the attempt to blow up the Tyumen-Baku passenger train.  This is why it a new phase of counterterrorism operation in the North Caucasus cannot be ruled out.  The Irish Times wrote that "For Russians facing a renewed terror threat, the people of the Caucasus who fear a backlash and western powers with major strategic interests in the region, the fate of the Nevsky Express may be a grim portent of even worse to come."

True, Vladimir Putin said publicly that he did not see any reason for a renewal of war in the Caucasus.  But he also admitted that the "situation in the North Caucasus is difficult.  First and foremost, difficulties arise because of different armed gangs and extremist groups which still operate in the North Caucasus."  The Russian prime minister has drawn a conclusion from the current situation which he has drawn many times before:  the fight against terrorist groups must be uncompromising and must continue until the terrorists are completely eliminated.

In the mean time, a solution to the problem of terrorism - and to all appearances, the Russian leaders realize this - lies not only and not so much in a strong-arm scenario, as in areas which have more to do with the daily lives of the millions of people living in the Caucasus.  Perhaps the most convincing description of the situation was that of Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergey Mironov, who said that "Caucasian terrorism" is in large part caused by economic collapse, poverty, joblessness and corruption.  "The state creates the preconditions for the growth of terrorism in the North Caucasus with its own hand.  And then the state also spends huge amounts of money maintaining the military-police machine in the south of the country.  To defeat terrorists, it is necessary to start restoring order in governmental organisations in the North Caucasus republics," Mironov said.

However, the need for measures of an economic and social nature, alongside the "uncompromising struggle with terrorism," is also recognized by Russia's top ruling tandem.  Prime Minister Putin deems the fight against corruption and the creation of high-salaried jobs in the North Caucasus to be important.  And President Dmitriy Medvedev noted in his much discussed article "Go Russia!", published back on 10 August, that the situation in the security sector in the North Caucasus would not be so acute had the region been properly developed socially and economically.

The backwardness of the regional economy is indeed the scourge of the North Caucasus.  All the republics - constituent parts of the Russian Federation - are subsidized.  90% of the budgets of Chechnya and Ingushetia, 78% of the Dagestani budget, 67% of the Karachay-Cherkessia budget and 60% of the North Ossetia budget are funded by the federal budget.  The amorphous nature of Moscow's control over the local financial sector, combined with the corruption and clannishness which are widespread here, further exacerbate the consequences of the subsidized North Caucasus economy.

At the same time, the absence of any rational central policy for the region, which is admitted even in the Kremlin's corridors, contributes to the lack of more or less comprehensible prospects for strategic development in the North Caucasus republics and further reduces the standing of Russian law there.  This is particularly manifest in the employment by Russian power departments of cruel and inappropriate measures against the people of the region.  As a result, local forces which position themselves as "Islamic" find themselves in an advantageous position and enlist support from an increasing number of people.  Resorting to terrorism often becomes the only way for an ordinary resident to take revenge for an insult.  The terrorist act in Nazran is clear proof of that.

It is presumed that Batyr Dzhaniyev, who blew up the car at the traffic police roadblock in Nazran, did it to avenge his mother's death.  The day before, a VAZ-21099 car was blown up with the Dzhaniyev family inside:  Batyr's mother, Leyla Dzhaniyeva, and three of her children were in the car.  The woman and her 25-years-old son Muslim died on the spot.  Her second son, Amirkhan, and pregnant daughter, Fatima - the widow of former opposition member Maksharip Aushev - were hospitalized.  According to media reports, the Dzhaniyev family car exploded after it was fired on from a police roadblock.

Certainly, the spread of extremism in the North Caucasus was also facilitated by the conditions and consequences of the Chechen military campaigns, but Moscow's present-day policy in the region paves the way for dissemination of radical religious sentiment.  It has to be remembered that increasing numbers of people support the introduction of Sharia law in the North Caucasus and among these supporters are people who are directly affiliated to the secular authorities but believe that Islam cannot be separated from the state and its policy.  The extreme form of these sentiments manifests itself, in particular, in the dissemination of Wahhabism, which is not traditional in the region, among the most impoverished sections of the population which carries on its shoulders, as the saying goes, all the "joys" of surviving poverty, joblessness, total corruption - factors which deprive the local authorities of at least some support.

In the mean time, the introduction of a rational, long-term "North Caucasus" strategy by the Kremlin is in the interests of not only the southern regions of Russia, but also neighbouring countries.  In this sense, it is clear that Moscow and Baku have common objectives in fighting extremist groupings, including, for example, the Wahhabi "Forest Brothers," and the Azerbaijani special services successfully check their attempts to spread their areas of influence in northern areas of Azerbaijan.