Suicide bomber strikes president of Russian republic, kills aide
The assassination attempt on Ingushetia's Yunus Bek Yevkurov sends the president to the hospital. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls the blast 'a terrorist attack.'
By Megan K. Stack
10:02 AM PDT, June 22, 2009
Reporting from Moscow -- A suicide car bomber struck the motorcade of the president of the restive Russian republic of Ingushetia on this morning, killing at least one aide and sending the president to the hospital amid conflicting reports of his condition.
The attempt to assassinate Yunus Bek Yevkurov, a career military and intelligence officer charged with taming the violence in the largely Muslim republic, underscored the instability and insurrections plaguing Russia's southern borderlands. Witnesses said the bomber skirted his car around the president's police escort and barged into the convoy before setting off his blast. Yevkurov's staff said the president was unconscious and in "serious but stable" condition today. The president's younger brother was also wounded.
Since coming to office last October, Yevkurov, 45, had tried to tamp down anger in the region, said Alexander Cherkasov, who has worked extensively in Ingushetia for the human rights group Memorial. The president extended amnesty to militants, met with human rights groups and insisted upon the involvement of local police in military operations.
"He tried to limit violence against the civilian population and to mend the split between society and authorities, to show that the authorities in Ingushetia are not against the society," Cherkasov said. "In this sense, he was much more dangerous for the underground fighters than his predecessor."
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev called the blast "a terrorist attack."
"The president has done much recently to bring order and ensure peace in the republic," Medvedev said in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency. "Bandits do not like these efforts."
Russian security services said they would send fresh reinforcements to the Caucasus.
"Today's incident was an attempt to destabilize the situation," said Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov during his meeting with Medvedev. "The militants threatened Yevkurov many times. This is their response."
Moscow has appeared eager to downplay violence in the notoriously restive republics along its southern flank, which lie close to Sochi, host city to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Two months ago, the government declared an official end to counter-terrorism operations in Chechnya, where Russia bled through two ruthless wars in the last two decades.
But the steady drip of violence in Ingushetia, where about half a million people live mired in poverty, corruption and extremism, continues to challenge Moscow's control of the region. Today's attempt on Yevkurov's life was the latest in an escalating run of attacks on government officials in Ingushetia, which has edged out Chechnya as the epicenter of separatist Muslim militias in the Russian Caucasus.
Analysts say a Kremlin-backed crackdown on Chechnya itself has fueled an overflow of fighters into neighboring republics, especially Ingushetia. Ramzan Kadyrov, a onetime rebel fighter who rose to become a Kremlin-backed strongman president in Chechnya, taunted Yevkurov's killers.
"They have shown their true colors," he told reporters in Chechnya. "They want to start chaos in Ingushetia, to unleash an endless armed conflict and to seed fear and uncertainty in the souls of civilians."
A judge and a former prime minister were gunned down in separate attacks earlier this month. And in a separate attack today, a senior Ingush investigator lost his leg in a bombing attack.
megan.stack@latimes.com
By Megan K. Stack
10:02 AM PDT, June 22, 2009
Reporting from Moscow -- A suicide car bomber struck the motorcade of the president of the restive Russian republic of Ingushetia on this morning, killing at least one aide and sending the president to the hospital amid conflicting reports of his condition.
The attempt to assassinate Yunus Bek Yevkurov, a career military and intelligence officer charged with taming the violence in the largely Muslim republic, underscored the instability and insurrections plaguing Russia's southern borderlands. Witnesses said the bomber skirted his car around the president's police escort and barged into the convoy before setting off his blast. Yevkurov's staff said the president was unconscious and in "serious but stable" condition today. The president's younger brother was also wounded.
Since coming to office last October, Yevkurov, 45, had tried to tamp down anger in the region, said Alexander Cherkasov, who has worked extensively in Ingushetia for the human rights group Memorial. The president extended amnesty to militants, met with human rights groups and insisted upon the involvement of local police in military operations.
"He tried to limit violence against the civilian population and to mend the split between society and authorities, to show that the authorities in Ingushetia are not against the society," Cherkasov said. "In this sense, he was much more dangerous for the underground fighters than his predecessor."
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev called the blast "a terrorist attack."
"The president has done much recently to bring order and ensure peace in the republic," Medvedev said in remarks carried by the Interfax news agency. "Bandits do not like these efforts."
Russian security services said they would send fresh reinforcements to the Caucasus.
"Today's incident was an attempt to destabilize the situation," said Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov during his meeting with Medvedev. "The militants threatened Yevkurov many times. This is their response."
Moscow has appeared eager to downplay violence in the notoriously restive republics along its southern flank, which lie close to Sochi, host city to the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Two months ago, the government declared an official end to counter-terrorism operations in Chechnya, where Russia bled through two ruthless wars in the last two decades.
But the steady drip of violence in Ingushetia, where about half a million people live mired in poverty, corruption and extremism, continues to challenge Moscow's control of the region. Today's attempt on Yevkurov's life was the latest in an escalating run of attacks on government officials in Ingushetia, which has edged out Chechnya as the epicenter of separatist Muslim militias in the Russian Caucasus.
Analysts say a Kremlin-backed crackdown on Chechnya itself has fueled an overflow of fighters into neighboring republics, especially Ingushetia. Ramzan Kadyrov, a onetime rebel fighter who rose to become a Kremlin-backed strongman president in Chechnya, taunted Yevkurov's killers.
"They have shown their true colors," he told reporters in Chechnya. "They want to start chaos in Ingushetia, to unleash an endless armed conflict and to seed fear and uncertainty in the souls of civilians."
A judge and a former prime minister were gunned down in separate attacks earlier this month. And in a separate attack today, a senior Ingush investigator lost his leg in a bombing attack.
megan.stack@latimes.com
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