CONFLICT BAROMETER 2008

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20 Conflict Barometer <strong>2008</strong> inally Azerbaijani ”emir of Dagestan”, Ilgar Malachiyev alias Abdul Madzhid, and two of his accomplices were killed on September 8 near the village of Magaramkent. On September 16, ten rebels and one FSB agent were killed in an anti-terror operation when Russian special forces ambushed an Islamist militant group. The neighboring former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan became increasingly affected by the activities of Dagestani Islamist rebels. On August 17, the largest Sunni mosque in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, was bombed, leaving two people dead. The Azeri authorities blamed Malachiyev for the attack, and launched special operations against Islamist militants, killing a number of insurgents in the country’s northern border region in the following months. (aog) Russia (Islamist rebels/Ingushetia) Intensity: 4 Change: Start: 2004 Conflict parties: Islamist rebels vs. government Conflict items: secession, system/ideology The secession and system conflict between Islamist rebels in Ingushetia and both the regional and national authorities worsened. In recent years, Islamist separatist violence in Russia’s North Caucasus had increasingly shifted from Chechnya to Ingushetia [→ Russia (Islamist rebels/Chechnya)], where the security situation steadily deteriorated. Bomb blasts, gun battles, and small-scale ambushes against security forces and government officials occurred on an almost daily basis. Responsibility for the attacks was in most cases uncertain but usually attributed to Islamist rebels. Ingushetia’s chief prosecutor, Yury Turygin, announced that 53 attempts had been made on the lives of law-enforcement officers and servicemen in the republic from January till May, a steep increase compared to 2007. According to Turygin, these attacks killed 17 security forces, compared to 25 insurgents killed. On October 23, the public prosecution stated that assaults on law-enforcement personnel had doubled. The security forces resorted to both largescale sweep operations and detentions of individuals, allegedly accompanied by frequent human rights violation. However, according to reports, police was forced to increasingly apply defensive tactics in order to cope with the deteriorating security situation. Former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev likened the situation to a slow civil war. At least four people were injured when a car bomb exploded on a central street in the main city, Nazran, on March 24. Unidentified gunmen assassinated the deputy chairman of Ingushetia’s Supreme Court in Karabulak on April 13, and attempted to assassinate a deputy in Ingushetia’s People’s Assembly on April 25, killing his brother. During the first week of August, the insurgency reached a climax, with at least one policeman or Federal Security Service (FSB) officer being killed or wounded every day. On August 31, Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of opposition Internet news site ingushetiya.ru, was shot dead in police custody [→ Russia (opposition)]. On September 10, Bekkhan Zyazikov, the cousin of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, was killed in Nazran. On September 15, the first deputy head of the Ingush FSB branch was killed during a special operation in the village of Verkhniye Achaluki in Malgobek District. A suicide bomber attacked Interior Minister Musa Medov’s motorcade on September 30 but failed to harm the minister, while five bystanders were wounded. Ingushetiya.ru reported on October 16 that rebel fighters had seized the villages of Muzhichi and Yandare, setting up their own checkpoints. Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry dismissed these claims. In a major attack, the Ingush jamaat attacked Interior Ministry military convoys near the villages of Galashki and Surkhakhi on October 18. Although Russian officials initially confirmed two casualties, other sources reported between 50 and 90 soldiers killed. Five days later, a mass kidnapping of 15 people including four police officers was reported from the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya. According to ingushetiya.ru, leaflets warned that drug dealers and owners of gambling houses would be killed. On October 30, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev dismissed Ingushetia’s unpopular president Zyazikov, replacing him with former Intelligence Division Deputy Commander of the Volga- Urals Military District Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. Yevkurov announced he would not take a strictly military approach to fighting the Islamist insurgency but would also combat its causes, e.g. official corruption. (sga) Russia (Islamist rebels/North Ossetia-Alania) Intensity: 3 Change: Start: 2006 Conflict parties: Islamist rebels vs. government Conflict items: secession, system/ideology The system and secession conflict between the Islamist insurgents of Kataib al-Khoul, alias the Ossetian Jamaat, and the government in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of North Ossetia-Alania continued. Kataib al-Khoul gunmen assassinated the head of the North Ossetian Interior Ministry’s Organized Crime Squad (UBOP) in the regional capital, Vladikavkaz, on March 7. On March 25 and April 19, unidentified assailants opened fire on security forces on the border with Ingushetia. The director of the North Ossetian criminal investigation department was assassinated by unknown perpetrators in Vladikavkaz on October 1. On November 6, a suicide bomber on a minibus taxi killed twelve people outside the main market of Vladikavkaz. The mayor of Vladikavkaz, Vitaly Karayev, was shot dead in the regional capital on November 26. Kataib al-Khoul later claimed responsibility for the assassination. Russian chief public prosecutor Alexander Bastrykin speculated on the possibility of the Islamists seeking to reignite the 1992 ethnic conflict between predominantly Christian Ossetians and mainly Muslim Ingush. On 12/08/07, local youth near the village of Stary Terek had attacked a group of Chechens on a pilgrimage to Mekka. (aog) Russia (opposition) Intensity: 2 Change: Start: 2001 Conflict parties: opposition vs. government Conflict items: system/ideology, national power The conflict between the opposition and the government continued. On 12/03/07, the pro-Kremlin United Russia party won the parliamentary elections, which did not meet democratic standards according to delegations of
Europe 21 the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe. The OSCE’s election observing unit abstained due to obstruction by Russian authorities. On 12/10/07, opposition activist Yuri Chervochkin died from injuries allegedly caused by policemen during an anti-government rally in November 2007. In the run-up to the presidential elections in March, the United Civil Front’s Garry Kasparov withdrew his candidacy, and the People’s Democratic Union’s Mikhail Kasyanov was not admitted. Other opposition activists were detained during the election period. On March 2, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, preferred candidate of outgoing President Vladimir Putin, won the presidential elections. The independent Russian election observing institute Golos characterized the elections as undemocratic, whereas the OSCE refused again to monitor the elections after a row over strong restrictions of their work by Russian authorities. On May 17, Kasparov formally launched an alternative parliament aiming at strengthening democracy in Russia and the unification of the opposition parties. In July, Great Britain granted Andrei Sidelnikov, the leader of Russian youth opposition group Pora!, political asylum. On November 13, unknown perpetrators severely injured Mikhail Beketov, journalist for an opposition newspaper, who had frequently criticized the local administration in Khimkin. On November 14, the opposition demonstrated against President Medvedev’s parliament-backed plans to change the constitution in order to extend the presidential term in office from four to six years. On November 17, the trial of three men accused of involvement in the murder of critical journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 began in Moscow, closed to the public. (jd, lo) Russia - Estonia Intensity: 2 Change: Start: 1994 Conflict parties: Russia vs. Estonia Conflict items: international power Relations between Estonia and Russia remained tense. On May 14, seven NATO members backed a new cyber defense center in Estonia, which blamed Russia for attacks on its internet structure in 2007. On June 28, Russia’s and Estonia’s presidents held their first meeting since 2005 during the 5th World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia. However, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves walked out of the congress due to an anti-Estonian speech by the chairman of the Russian Duma’s foreign affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev. Relations between the two countries further deteriorated in the wake of the Russian- Georgian conflict [→ Russia - Georgia]. On August 9, the presidents of Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia [→ Russia - Latvia] released a joint statement strongly condemning Russia’s military actions against Georgia. On August 26, Ilves expressed dissatisfaction with NATO’s defense plans for the Baltic States. At the EU emergency summit on the Russian-Georgian conflict on September 1, Estonia was among the countries calling for sanctions against Russia. On September 21, Herman Simm, the former head of the Estonian Defense Ministry’s security department, was arrested on espionage charges. Simm, who was responsible for secret coordination with NATO and the EU, was suspected of passing highly sensitive information to Russia, including details of the controversial US missile shield [→ USA - Russia (missile system)]. (aog, lw) Russia - Georgia Intensity: 5 Change: Start: 1992 Conflict parties: Russia vs. Georgia Conflict items: international power The conflict between Russia and Georgia escalated to war in August in the wake of Georgia’s military attempt to regain control over South Ossetia [→ Georgia (South Ossetia)]. Since October 2007, the incidents with Russian peacekeeping soldiers in the conflict zone of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia [→ Georgia (Abkhazia)] and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s accusations of Russian involvement in opposition demonstrations in November 2007 [→ Georgia (opposition)] dominated the relations between Russia and Georgia. On 12/03/07, Russia suspended its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), limiting the deployment of conventional weapons west of the Urals, and thus caused Georgian fears of Russian troops massing at the common border. At the same time, Russia repeatedly voiced its opposition to Georgia’s NATO aspirations. However, Georgian-Russian relations seemed to improve after a presidential meeting in Moscow, the Russian capital, in February. Saakashvili announced the two countries were close to reaching a deal on resuming air traffic, which had been suspended in 2006, and establishing joint customs posts at the Abkhazian and South Ossetian sections of the Russian-Georgian border. The legalization of the customs posts at Gantiadi and Roki were a precondition for Georgia unblocking Russia’s membership aspirations to the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, in the wake of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on February 17 [→ Serbia (Kosovo)], and its recognition by the USA and various European countries, tensions rose again. After Russia had formally lifted economic and trade sanctions on Abkhazia and decided to strengthen its already close ties with Georgia’s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the WTO deal fell apart. In April, Russia was involved in the downing of a Georgian reconnaissance drone over Abkhazia, whereupon Georgia withdrew from an air-defense cooperation agreement concluded with Russia in 1995. Towards the end of the month, Russia increased the number of its peacekeepers in Abkhazia by 500 paratroopers. Georgia said this deployment brought the situation close to war. In May, Russia again deployed additional 400 troops to Abkhazia. In only two months, these unarmed troops rebuilt the railway line between Sukhumi and Ochamchire, later used to transport 9,000 Russian soldiers to Georgia. On July 8, Russian fighter jets violated Georgian airspace over South Ossetia, followed by mutual accusations and the recall of the Georgian ambassador from Moscow. In the same month, both Russia and Georgia held large-scale military maneuvers. Russia’s included military exercises in the North Cauca-
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CONFLICT BAROMETER 2008

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