ARMED INSURGENTS yesterday launched an attack on the parliament in Chechnya, the troubled southern Russian republic, killing at least three people and wounding 17 in a gun battle.
The attack was the most serious on the Chechen capital of Grozny in years and a sign of mounting instability as Russian forces fail to quell growing unrest among Islamic insurgents, who are stepping up pressure on Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen leader.
Analysts said the attack was a sign of Russia’s faltering policy in the volatile Caucasus region, where, despite billions of roubles (tens of millions of euros) in federal financial aid, widespread poverty and unemployment are continuing to stoke the Islamic insurgency, while Kremlin reliance on Mr Kadyrov’s strongman tactics has bred a new caste of rebels determined to shake his regime.
Three armed insurgents burst into the parliament compound in Grozny as parliamentarians arrived for work. One blew himself up outside the building, and the other two blew themselves up inside after a gunfight broke out with law enforcement officers who stormed the building, Russia’s investigative committee said. Two guards and a parliamentary officer were killed.
The attack came as Russia’s interior minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, visited Grozny to discuss security issues with Mr Kadyrov, whose guards fought off an attack on the Chechen leader’s home village of Tsenteroi as recently as August, which left 19 people dead.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, who came to power as president in 2000 launching a second Russian war against Chechen insurgents, has insisted the situation in the region is under control.
He praised Mr Kadyrov’s successful reining in of the attack on his home village in August as showing that the situation “was in good hands”.
Mr Kadyrov (34), became head of the region in 2004 after his father, the then Kremlin-loyal president, was assassinated by rebels. He has been heavily backed by Russia’s leaders. But critics say Mr Kadyrov’s heavy-handed tactics to root out opponents – leaving many opponents “disappeared” and others dead – has merely stoked the insurgency.
“The authorities’ reliance on Kadyrov has not solved the problems,” said Yevgeny Volk, political analyst with the Yeltsin foundation, an independent think tank. “Moscow had hoped he would bring order. But his iron rule in which human rights activists have disappeared or been arrested has pushed a lot of people into becoming his sworn enemy.
“This creeping terrorism has its roots in the social, political and economic realities of unemployment and poverty in the region, while there has always been a clan battle going on for the funds distributed to the region by Moscow,” he said.
The Kremlin declared the end of “counter-terror operations” in Chechnya last year, leaving local authorities largely in control. But rebel groups have stepped up their activities over the last 12 months as the insurgency fans out across the rest of the North Caucasus into the neighbouring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia, where suicide attacks and shootings are common.
An Islamic insurgent group led by Doku Umarnov claimed responsibility for the deadly bombings in the Moscow metro in March.