Posted on August 29, 2010 - by Venik

Islamist rebels launch deadly attack on Chechen president’s village

At least 19 people including five civilians die as insurgents strike against pro-Moscow leader Ramzan Kadyrov

At least 19 people were killed today after Islamist rebels launched an audacious attack on the heavily defended residence of Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin president, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Chechen officials said that 12 insurgents and two guards were killed after the rebels slipped into Tsentoroi, Kadyrov’s home village, also known as Khosi-Yurt, in the early hours of this morning . Russian TV reported that five civilians had also been killed in fierce fighting.

The main rebel website, www.kavkazcenter.com, claimed 60 “mujahideen” had stormed Kadyrov’s village at 4.30am, destroying two checkpoints and blowing up an armoured personnel carrier. It said five of its fighters from three units were “martyred” during the operation.

TV footage showed a burnt-out car 150 metres from the entrance to Kadyrov’s residence. The rebels claim they carried out a “sweep” of the village, occupying it for one hour, and burning down 10 houses. They also seized ammunition and communications equipment, the website said.

The assault on Kadyrov’s fortress-like headquarters appears to be a symbolic blow against Chechnya’s pro-Moscow president rather than a genuine assassination attempt. It is a reminder that, despite frequent Kremlin claims to the contrary, Kadyrov and other local leaders have failed to stop the Islamist insurgency in Russia’s northern Caucasus.

“This is a very painful strike not only against Ramzan [Kadyrov] but against Moscow,” Alexei Malashenko, an expert on the north Caucasus at Moscow’s Carnegie Centre, said. “Tsentoroi is like a fortress with a lot of tanks and military men. I’ve been there several times.”

“The situation in the North Caucasus is now much more difficult than [Vladimir] Putin or [Dmitry] Medvedev imagine it. We are talking about a growing Islamist opposition and hundreds or even thousands of militants in Chechnya alone, with more young men joining them up in the mountains. It’s a civil war. Invisible or visible, it’s a war.”

The village may also have been chosen out of revenge, Malashenko said. Kadyrov – who has been accused of involvement in the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a claim he denies, as well as numerous human rights abuses – has his own private prison in Tsentoroi, where inmates including captured rebels are often tortured, survivors have testified.

Despite two brutal Kremlin wars in Chechnya, Russia’s Islamist rebellion has multiplied in recent years and has spread to the neighbouring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia. Over the weekend, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed it was winning this struggle, and had shot dead 30 rebels in the month of August. Over the past few days violence has spiked across the region, possibly in response to the killing on 21 August by federal forces of Magomedali Vagabov, a top rebel leader in Dagestan.

Today Kadyrov claimed he had deliberately lured the Islamic militants into his home village before wiping them out. “We let them in so they couldn’t escape,” he told Channel One television. An Associated Press photographer at the scene described fire-ravaged and bullet-ridden homes, with body parts lying among the rubble.

On Saturday, nine suspected militants were killed in two separate shootouts with police in the Kabardino-Balkariya republic, while five suspected militants and two police officers were killed in another shootout in Dagestan.

Kadyrov previously fought on the side of the rebels but switched sides and was installed by the Kremlin as Chechen leader in 2007.

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