The simmering conflict between warring clans in Chechnya has exploded back into live over the past few weeks.

A violent confrontation between the motorcades of President Ramzan Kadyrov, backed by the Kremlin, and Badruddi Yamadayev, brother of a militia leader backed by the Russian Defence Ministry, threatens to be the spark that ignites yet more conflict in Chechnya.

Traffic jam turns to gunfire

The two rival motorcades (totalling close to a hundred cars) had the misfortune to be travelling in opposite directions on the same road, at the same time. And, in a war-torn country where image is everything, neither would back down to let the other pass.

(To get an idea of what a 50 car motorcade in Chechnya looks like these days, take a look at this video of another Ramzan Kadyrov convoy. In particular, look at the high performance cars - apparently, there are “at least nine Porsche Cayenne vehicles, two BMW 5 Series, two Mercedes S-Class, and eight Lexus GX 470 (or Toyota 100 Land Cruiser)” in the convoy. Cars like that don’t come cheap).

Anyway, one thing led to another and, soon, heavily armed bodyguards were exchanging fire. The Chechen authorities deny that anyone was killed in the skirmish, but the Reuters news agency has reported that up to 18 people - both bodyguards and civilians - were killed in the battle.

Anxious to avoid massive bloodshed, Kadyrov himself apparently stepped in to calm the situation. According to the Times, before they left the scene, both Kadyrov and Yamadayev exchanged a bear hug.

Yamadayev under seige

But looks are often deceiving in Chechnya. Kadyrov might have sensed that a battle on the road was in his interests but, once out of range, he ordered 300 Chechen police to surround the base of the Vostok Battalion, headed by Yamadayev’s elder brother, Sulim Yamadayev. A three day seige ensued, during which two members of the Vostok battallion were killed.

At the same time, Kadyrov began a war of words, accusing rival Yamadayev and his brother of abuductions and murders. In a statement he announced that:

“As president I have summoned law enforcement heads and asked them why the Vostok battalion is ‘commanded’ by Badrudi Yamadayev - a man who should be in jail, but instead is walking around armed to the teeth and committing further crimes.”

The Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, a Kadyrov ally, has also called for Yamadayev to step down as commander of the Vostok battallion.

According to media reports, Badruddi Yamadayev escaped the seige and is in hiding.

Is the Kremlin losing control?

Putin’s reputation as a strongman is built in part on his ability to bring stability to the Russian Caucasus, and his ability to bring Chechnya to heel under a puppet regime led by Kadyrov.

But a violent confrontation of this magnitude in Chechnya is a massive embarrassment for the Kremlin and for Putin personally.

At best, this month’s conflict demonstrates that Kremlin no longer has control of the situation in Chechnya.

At worst, though, the conflict could demonstrate that the Kremlin does not have control over even its own Defense Ministry. The Vostok Battallion is backed by the Defence Ministry and, as such, is the only (legal) militia in Chechnya not under the direct control of either Kadyrov or the Kremlin.

As Chechen analyst Ruslan Martagov notes:

“One is under the orders of the presidential administration, the other is under the orders of the Defense Ministry. What prevents them from summoning both these people and telling them, ‘You take your troops here, and you take your troops there’? This would take about 20 minutes,” Martagov says. “Either they don’t want to do that, or they have absolutely no control over the situation there.”

Scary.

Tonight, for the first time in more than a decade, top-flight Russian football will be played in Grozny, capital of war-torn Chechnya.

Terek Grozny, the city’s professional football team won promotion to the Russian Premier League last year and, after years of playing in exile, have finally been granted permission to play their home games inside of Chechnya.

The match between hosts Terek Grozny and visitors Krylya Sovietov Samara has attracted so much attention that the match will even overshadow this weekend’s match between last year champions Zenit St Petersburg and runners up Spartak Moscow.

Excitement

To celebrate, Chechnya’s Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has announced that tickets for the match will be free to home fans, who will be able to take their first look at the inside of Grozny’s rebuilt 10,300 seater stadium. He’s also promised that Chechen fans will show “the real meaning of Chechen hospitality.”

Terek fans might be celebrating, but Leonid Slutsky, the Samara coach doesn’t sound entirely convinced the decision to host games in Grozny was a good one, though.

“If the FA decided that Terek should play their home games in Grozny, then so be it. I just hope they don’t change their mind a few weeks later and we would be the only ones who had played in Grozny.”

Chechnya is safe

Samara’s travelling fans will understandably be nervous ahead of tonight’s game - two wars in 15 years and an ongoing low-level insurgency aren’t exactly reassuring.

But Vladimir Putin, Russia’s outgoing President, has a lot riding on this game, as bringing Chechnya back into Russian society has been one of the key promises underpinning his eight years at the top. Any trouble tonight would reflect badly on him.

The Guardian newspaper reports that the Kremlin put heavy pressure on the Russian FA to allow Terek to host home games in Grozny, and demonstate that peace and stability has returned to the one time rebel capital.

You can bet that the police and army will be out in force today, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is confident that the game will go well.

“I can give a 100-percent guarantee that there are no terrorist threats here. I’m confident that the ability to see Premier League matches will be the most precious gift for our people.”

Terek’s Troubled History

Formed in 1946, disbanded in 1994, and re-formed in 2001, Terek Grozny have had a troubled history. But not a history entirely without success.

For much of the past two decades, Terek have been forced to play their home matches in exile, in Pyatigorsk. But since reforming in 2001, Terek have gone from strength to strength.

The high point of the club’s history surely came in 2004, when Terek Grozny stunned Samara to win the Russian Cup. The victory gave them a slot in European football’s prestigeous UEFA Cup. Sadly, after a qualifying round victory against Polish club Lech Poznan, Terek found the Swiss team FC Basel too strong for them in the first round.

2004 also saw Terek promoted to the Russian Premier League for the first time - an astounding feat for a club that was only in its fourth season since re-forming. Sadly the Premier League proved too tough for Terek during 2005, and they were relegated.

But two more seasons in the Russian First Division have given them the opportunity to build a solid, competitive side who, especially in front of their own fans, will be hoping to do stick around in the Premier League for quite some time.

A couple of scenarios could be in play. The first is that Putin has decided to gain hard cash by putting fissile material on the black market, which is not only insane but counterproductive. After all, Putin has his own insurgencies in the Caucasus, and the material could just as easily find its way there rather that against Putin’s enemies. The second possibility is even more frightening — which is that Russia has lost control over its nuclear materials and wants to keep the West from discovering it.

I think discarding the first option is pretty easy, too.  Putin has no need of hard cash - even if he is approaching retirement, he’s got plenty of far better ways to earn some ‘under the counter’ income.  And Russia as a country isn’t exactly scrabbling around for hard cash, floating as it does on a mighty lake of black gold.

The second option is far, far more plausible and, I think, the most likely option.  Nuclear security in Russia is lax- there simply is no denying it.  Bribery and corruption is endemic, and the people guarding nuclear material are - by and large - poor.  Beyond fear, they have very little incentive to turn down a bundle of thousand rouble notes in return for looking the other way. 

A quick Google search shows that nuclear material has been going missing from Russian stores for a decade or more.  A Guardian news story shows that Chechens might have some radioactive material. 

One final option that should be considered (even though its not one I personally subscribe to) is that the Russian government is deliberately making use of its arsenal of nuclear material to further its political agenda.  This could range from trying to strike fear into the hearts of rogue operatives, to intimidation of friendly (and not so friendly states) by hinting that a dirty bomb is a possibility, to simply trying to persuade Western donors to pay for the cleanup, disposal or security of nuclear material. 

Vladimir Putin used the fifth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay to try and convince the world that Russia is morally superior to the United States:

“Russia, hopefully, will not have a Guantanamo. The world community is marking five years since this camp was formed, where people are held without trial or investigation. It is a lamentable situation,” Putin told the presidential Council for Assisting Civil Society and Human Rights Institutions.

Clearly Putin has forgotten Chechnya, where Russian forces held Chechen prisoners at “filtration points” such as PAP-1 without trial.  The investigations carried out there tended to be of the brutal variety.

Oh, this is going to just thrill the boys at the Kremlin - Iran is training Chechens in terror techniques:

Iran is secretly training Chechen rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards’ Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran, according to Western intelligence reports.

In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom.

If it’s true, of course. Iran does some pretty stupid things from time to time, but is it really going to get caught offering terrorist training to the enemies of its only real superpower?

Well, actually, I wouldn’t put it past them.

I’ve held back from commenting on yesterday’s Chechen parliamentary elections, mainly because I’m pretty sure they’ll be… how can I put this?… unrepresentative. For anyone who hasn’t already worked out the lie of the land - pro-Kremlin party United Russia currently leads the way with a (clearly representative) 60% of the vote, from a 66% turnout.

The Russian government’s verdict is that the election was quite clearly a success.

“The elections to the parliament of the Chechen republic being held today are smoother than ever. The voting process has been organized properly,” [Federation Council Deputy Speaker Alexander] Torshin said.

On the other hand, this quote from the European Union pretty much encapsulates the way the rest of the world feels about this election - we all know it’s corrupt, but don’t think Chechnya is worth upsetting Russia over, so will find something blandly concilliatory to say:

“We welcome the fact that the elections took place without violence and we hope it will be a step toward a peaceful political process in the future,” said Emma Udwin, spokeswoman on external affairs at the EU’s executive body.

“That’s what we want to see,” she added.

“There hasn’t been much information on the way this election was conducted,” Udwin said, adding that neither the EU nor Europe’s OSCE security organization had sent monitors to the conflict-torn Caucasus region.

She is right, though, when she says the elections were peaceful. Which is progress of a sort.

Charlie Ganske at Russia Blog has a thoughtful post about whether Russia should focus its energies on maintaining a nuclear arsenal, or on preventing the breakup of the Motherland.

Today’s Washington Times features a story on Russia’s successful test of a maneuverable re-entry warhead. While this may bolster the national pride of Russian scientists and provide opponents of U.S. missile defenses with another talking point, the billions of rubles spent do nothing to address the real threats to Russia’s territorial integrity and security.

I think Charlie is right that the biggest threat to Russia right now is that of instability and militant Islam on it’s Southern borders - although I’m not sure that I’d go so far to suggest that Siberia may become China’s most northerly province. But I do think that he perhaps underestimates the benefits that nuclear weapons bring to Russia, and the relative cheapness of updating the nuclear arsenal compared with addressing deeper, more structural problems such as corruption in the military.

Spending money on addressing the structural problems that beset Russia’s convential military forces (”conventional”, “nuclear” - I feel like I’m back in the Cold War) is, without doubt, going to be of immense benefit to Russia. But restructuring the army is an expensive, and long term project. The problems of addressing corruption in society as a whole are going to be even more challenging. Spending money on nuclear weapons, on the other hand, is, comparatively cheap, and carries large short term benefits (or, to put that more precisely, avoids a great deal of short term damage).

I know it’s a cliche, but nuclear weapons really do carry cachet on the world stage. There is a belief among many states that nuclear power buys influence in global affairs. In the UK, where I live, updating our nuclear arsenal, small though it may be, has become a hot political topic. There are plenty for updating the arsenal, and plenty for turning our nuclear submarines into scrap, but the government seems convinced of the necessity to upgrade. I have no idea of the situation in France, but China is looking to boost it’s nuclear stockpile, and the US isn’t exactly neglecting nuclear research either. (And that’s before we even consider states like Israel, Iran and North Korea). These countries don’t spend all this money on nuclear bombs for fun - they spend it because they respect the nuclear arsenals of their competitors, and want to make sure that their arsenals are respsected also.

I personally don’t buy into their logic, but it is the logic that they use. And they are the people playing the game. It’s what they think that really matters in interstate relations.

One of the main reasons that Russia faces trouble on its borders is the general perception that it is a weak state - a belief shared not just by other states, but by disaffected groups within Russia itself. If Russia’s nuclear arsenal loses the respect of other states around the world, Russia loses respect (in the sense of fear, rather than love, of course) One that respect goes, so does a big chunk of what remains of Russia’s influence and bargaining power in the world. States hostile to Russia will take note of this, and feel emboldened to further provoke instability on and within Russia’s borders.

Although Russia does need to invest in long term projects to ensure its security, it also needs to spend a considerable amount of time, effort and, yes, money, on firefighting. It is hard to push the Cold War to the back of our minds, but perhaps in the early 21st Century, we would do better to look at Russia’s nuclear investments more as a defensive, rather than an agressive stance.

Sometimes it seems as if terrorism in Russia is a phenomenon of the North Caucasus. But Moscow has been hit almost as hard over the last five years:

Moscow’s police chief Col. Gen. Vladimir Pronin has said that 354 people died in terrorist attacks in Moscow over the past five years, the Interfax news agency reports.

“From 1999 to 2004, we have had 13 terrorist attacks in Moscow with 354 killed and 647 injured. The organizers of nine terrorist attacks have either been arrested or their identities confirmed,” Pronin said at the Terrorism and Electronic Mass Media conference in Gelendzhik.

I haven’t done the math, but I assume that Pronin is including the two airliners that were hijacked last year in his calculations.

Update: Check the comments below for three attempts to work out the numbers, including mine. Each of us came up with a different figure to Pronin, each of us came up with a higher figure than Pronin.

Pavel Felgenhauer’s regular Defense Dossier column wasn’t published in the Moscow Times this week. By the looks of things, his views on the Nalchik raid were considered unacceptable to the editor, who rejected it.

Felgenhauer sees conspiracy, both in Nalchik, and at the Moscow Times, and has sent his version of events to Johnson’s Russia List:

Berry decided not to publish my regular column this week that was filed Sunday and was about the tragedy in Nalchik, but the story is, I believe, more important than a simple clash of opinion between editor and columnist.

Today there is mounting evidence from eyewitnesses in Nalchik that the rebel attack or uprising on Oct. 13 was followed by a rampage by security forces, by random revenge killings, ethnically and religiously motivated murder of suspects from the minority Balkar tribe by the local police force that is predominately Kabardin. Eyewitnesses (I met and had contact with some) that are in no way connected with the rebels ethnically or religiously, not only report horrific stories of indiscriminate killings, a massacre, but also say that the number of dead in Nalchik is several times higher than officially reported and that there are over 300 corpses in the local morgue.

There is a cover-up of the alleged massacre in Nalchik that is run by the Russian state propaganda machine and it seems that The Moscow Times has succumb to becoming part of this cover-up. Not only have they rejected my column, which could have been a coincidence, but also their reporting of events in Nalchik is a copy-story of government propaganda.

You can find his full, and unedited column at the Johnson’s Russia List site, but here’s a brief excerpt, so you can see what all the fuss is about:

Small groups of rebels of 3 to 10 men simultaneously attacked police stations and other military targets (9 locations in all) in Nalchik last Thursday at 9 am. Most of the engagements lasted about an hour, and then the rebels melted away before Russian reinforcements could enter the city. Security forces and army units began putting up roadblocks around Nalchik long after most of the action was over and these pickets did not cover the entire perimeter of the city. Three small groups of rebels (less than 20 men, most of them wounded) were stranded in Nalchik and were killed by Special Forces the next day.

But the official body count raises many questions. The history of contemporary urban anti-guerrilla engagements by Russian forces in the Caucasus, Americans in Iraq and so on, indicates that dislodging, killing or capturing over a hundred determined fighters, holed up within a big modern city requires much effort, a week or so of action and lots of tanks, heavy guns and attack aircraft support. The casualty list, the duration of the fight and it’s intensify in Nalchik do not match do not match each other.

Information has been coming out of Nalchik that many families are reporting that young men are missing without explanation. It would seem that after the original rebel force mostly melted away, the security forces began revenge attacks against the population, kidnapping and killing suspects more or less at random. This may explain the abnormally large number of “terrorists” killed. Local security officials could have used the occasion to settle old scores with suspected “Wahhabis,” while the large number of dead “terrorists” pleased the Kremlin and allowed it to declare victory.

By the looks of things, Felgenhauer is basing his analysis largely on his belief that the numbers quoted do not add up to what one would expect in such a battle. However, I’m not so sure he’s right in this case. Felgenhauer argues that it is difficult to dislodge “holed up” fighters, and in this assertion he is correct. However, by all accounts so far, most of the attackers involved in the raid on Nalchik didn’t manage to hole themselves up anywhere. Other than the 20 or so men stranded in Nalchik overnight, and killed the next day, it looks like all of the other attacks were repulsed by entrenched (or “holed up” perhaps?) Russian soldiers. (Note: I don’t mean entrenched in the sense that they were necessarily expecting an attack and well prepared - I mean this in the sense that they were physically in the buildings under attack, and all things being equal, would usually be expected to successfully defend their position.

I have a great deal of respsect for Pavel Felgenhauer, and I usually find his analyses spot on. He is generally anti-government in his stance, although in my experience, usually also willing to give credit to the government when it is due, and for him to write a column on Nalchik which is critical of the Russian government is not surprising. But, this time, I think he has probably stepped over the line, by giving credence to rumours that are almost entirely unsupported by evidence. Not only does his basic hypothesis not stand up to even my simple scrutiny, but I can’t seem to find any other evidence to support his claim from what I would consider a reputable source.

The Russian media could, I suppose be colluding to keep news of a massacre from reaching the outside world, but I can’t imagine that every other credible news organisation in the world would fail to spot this, or at least to spot the rumours flying around and do some investigating of their own.

[Thanks to David from A Step at a Time, for the link to the Felgenhauer article]

It looks like the dust is beginning to settle after yesterday’s raid on the Southern Russian city of Nalchik, and the city is securely in the hands of the Russian military. In this post I’m just going to restrict myself to a roundup of news and views that have been published over the last few days, interspersed with a few thoughts of my own.

Firstly, I should say that the best roundup of yesterdays events came from Jim Hoft, at Gateway Pundit, who seemed to be able to publish a link to every relevant piece of news, almost as soon as it came out. And today, he’s posted a link to this BBC News video, dramatically showing Russian soldiers attacking a police station, where 8 terrorists, and rescuing 7 hostages.

You may also want to check out this fascinating analysis by Dan Darling, at Windsofchange.net, where he gives a lot of background on Yarmuk, the group believed to have carried out the attack (more on that further down this post)

Now that combat operations in Nalchik are over, and the city seems secured, thoughts are turning to the number of casualties. Yesterday, I noted that up to 60 people were killed, mostly the terrorists attacking the city. Today, as you would expect, the reported death toll is rising. In the latest report I’ve seen, from RIA Novosti, the Interior Ministry is quoting a total of 108 dead.

A total of 24 security personnel and troops and 12 civilians were killed during the militant attack on the North Caucasus city of Nalchik, Russia’s deputy interior minister said Friday.

Andrei Novikov also confirmed that 72 gunmen had been killed and 31 detained. Dozens of people were wounded.

In reports such as these, there is always the temptation to over-estimate the “other side’s” casualties, whilst minimising your own, but I don’t think they’ll be too far off the mark. Overall, I’d expect these figures to change over the coming days, but not by too much. If they come down at all, it will most likely be the number of terrorists (gunmen) killed that decreases.

Assuming these figures are roughly accurate, however, they do indicate that the raid was in many ways a failure. True, the attackers have achieved their aim of sowing terror, and have embarrassed the Russian government for it’s inability to prevent the attack itself.

But those undertaking the raid would have had much higher hopes for it, especially given the number of men involved. I would assume that they were either planning to get in and out with far fewer casualties than they eventually suffered or (more likely, I think) they were planning to take a large number of people hostage and then drag the drama out for as long as possible. Their failure to achieve these objectives means effectively that they have thrown away a large proportion of their organisations strength (in terms of manpower, for example) for very little return. They’ve also shown that, while they have the ability launch a raid, they do not appear to have the ability to launch a successful raid.

I think the Russian government will attempt to portray this raid largely as a victory for themselves, and their preparedness. That the raid took place at all does show that intelligence weaknesses still exist - and no doubt a few relatively minor heads will roll for them - but overall, I don’t think that any intelligence agency can be very successful in preventing attacks of this nature from a determined enemy. One only needs to look at the problems the US is having in Iraq to see how difficult it can be to prevent terrorist attacks, even when a region is crawling with military personnel. The Russian government instead will emphasise the success of their military in beating off the attack, arguing that it demonstrates they are beginning to succeed in the North Caucasus. And, in a sense they are right - in past years they may not have been well enough organised to beat back an attack of this magnitude. Given the generally pro-government stance taken by most of the Russian media when it comes to reporting events in and around Chechnya, I would imagine that, domestically, the government’s attempts to portray this as a victory will largely succeed.

Perhaps the most challenging problem coming out of yesterday’s events will be to identify exactly who undertook the raid, and what their motives were. The Russian government is strongly pushing the line that the attackers were Wahhabi’s - an extreme strand of Islamic thought, and a label that the Russian government seems to apply to every Muslim it dislikes these days. For an example of how some sections of the Russian press are reporting the attack, you might want to take a look at this Kommersant article. Kozak is a Presidential envoy to the region:

“We can judge what kind of Muslims they are, after we examined a dacha where the militants’s base was located,” Kozak said. “We found two bottles of vodka and wine there, lying by the Koran.”

It is becoming clear, though, that most of the attackers came from a group named Yarmak, based in the Kabardino-Balkaria republic itself, and not from Chechnya. Even the Kavkaz Center, well known as a Shamil Basayev mouthpiece, confirms that the attackers were predominately locals:

As KC’s source transmitted from Nalchik, the basic attack force of the Mujahideen consists of subdivisions from the Kabardino-Balkarian sector of the Caucasian Front, with associated forces from the Karachai-Circassian sector of the CF and several mobile subdivisions from other sectors of the Caucasian Front.

As locals, they may have had wider Islamic motives, but there are also many, such as Simon Saradzhyan, writing here for ISN Security Watch, who believe that local grievances played a major part in the motivations for the raid.

Poverty, historical grievances, and the indiscriminate suppression of “unofficial” Islam in Russia’s Kabardino-Balkaria have created a fertile ground for the growth of a virulent strain of religious extremism in this North Caucasian republic - a harsh reality that became apparent on Thursday when rebels raided the capital, Nalchik.

[…] The long-time leader of the republic, Valery Kokov, used the same tactic employed by other strongmen running North Caucasian republics in launching a campaign of harassment against all religious groups except the local branch of the Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Russia.

Kokov - who made it clear from the start that his regime would not tolerate any political or religious dissent - resigned earlier this year and was replaced in September by pro-Kremlin State Duma (Russian parliament) deputy and businessman Arsen Kanokov.

But the change was too little, too late, and the 15 years of Kokov’s iron-fisted rule had already taken their toll by radicalizing “unofficial” Muslim organizations in the republic to such a degree that some of their members had gone underground and taken up arms to fight the local regime in alliance with insurgent networks operating across the North Caucasus, experts told ISN Security Watch.

Ahmet Yarlykapov, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology, says Kokov’s regime attempted to suppress religious dissent among local Muslims by branding those who would not pledge loyalty to the Spiritual Board of Kabardino-Balkaria as “Wahhabis”.

I don’t think it would be right to characterise this purely as a local issue, however. There are clear links between radicals in Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechens such as Shamil Basayev. Simon Saradzhyan goes on to note that:

Basaev, who refers to himself as a terrorist, allegedly maintains close ties with extremists in Kabardino-Balkaria - reportedly close enough that he even trusted them with his life when he slipped into the town of Baksan in the republic, where he hid out for more that a month in 2003.

Failed Chechen suicide bomber Zarema Muzhakhoeva is also believed to have lived in Nalchik, being sheltered by local “Wahhabis” before setting out on an unsuccessful mission to detonate a bomb in downtown Moscow in the summer of 2003.

In addition, former Nalchik resident Murad Shuvaev, also a former local court official, is said by authorities to have housed Nikolai Kipkeev, the alleged organizer of the Rizhskaya subway station bombing, in his Moscow apartment last year.

The strength of links between Yarmak and terrorists in Chechnya is further underlined by this Andrew McGregor article, in which he notes:

While Chechens are routinely blamed for all bombings and other terrorist acts, it is the Turkic-speaking Karachays and Balkars that have actually been prosecuted for these incidents. An example is the 1999 apartment block bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, where blame was laid on Chechnya but all the individuals actually charged for these acts hail from Karachaevo-Cherkessia or Kabardino-Balkaria.

[Thanks to Dan Darling, by the way, for the McGregor link].

I must say that, although I can bring your attention to these links, I don’t know too much about them, or the particular political situation in Kabardino-Balkaria. If anyone out there has any more information, I’d be very grateful to hear it.

Reports are coming out of a major raid - presumably by Chechen militants - on Nalchik, a Southern Russian city. It looks like the raid, by approximately 150 gunmen according to reports, has been beaten back and up to 60 people - mostly militants, according to government reports - are believed to have been killed. There are also reports that some hostages have been taken at one of the city’s police stations.

The BBC has a report on this which is being updated as and when news comes in. Right now, they are saying that:

Russia’s Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said Mr Putin ordered the city to be completely sealed off to ensure not a single fighter can escape.

“Those who resist will be eliminated,” he said.

He was also quoted as saying he knew of no civilians killed in the fighting. Earlier, regional President Arsen Kanokov said 12 civilians had died.

Mr Kanokov also told Itar-Tass news agency that a third of the 150 rebels who took part in attacks had been killed.

I have to say, I’d be very very surprised if the civilian casualties remain low.

I’m going to be working through the rest of today, but I’ll try to update with the latest information later on this evening.

Update 4:40pm: While I’m still at work, Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has been busy putting together an excellent roundup of all the latest information coming out of Nalchik.

Update 5pm: Just time for one quick update before I leave - Mosnews is reporting that Shamil Basayev may have been killed in the raid.

Russia’s most-wanted Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev was killed by Russian forces in Thursday’s firefight in the Kabardino-Balkarian capital Nalchik, a source in the local branch of the FSB (the Federal Security Service) told the Chechen Society newspaper. Officials are remaining silent until a full identification procedure has been completed.

[…]But the seizure of the airport failed and the group of rebels led by Basayev was surrounded. To divert the attention of the Russian military, another group of rebels launched attacks on government buildings and Russian army units, but Basayev and his comrades were nevertheless killed, the source said.

The General Staff says, however, it does not have information about involvement of Basayev in the raid.

If true, this is a spectacular victory for the Russian government - although achieved at huge cost - and a disaster for Chechen militants. However, I wouldn’t want to read too much into it just yet. Hyperbole tends to be the order of the day from the Russian government in situations such as this, with rumours flying around left right and centre. Still, if they have the body, I’d imagine it will be paraded on national and international television within hours.

Update - Midnight: Just a quick look in before I go to bed and it appears that, unfortunately, Mosnews were wrong, and Shamil Basayev was not killed during the raid. It was unlikely that the rumour would turn out to be true, it has to be said, but we can dream…

Not really very much else to report at this stage. I think I’ll leave it until tomorrow now to piece things together, and put up some analysis.

Yes, it’s true, says Mosnews.  Iron Mike is going to pop down to Chechnya where he can sit back, chill out and watch some quality boxing:

The Gudermes tournament, dedicated to the late Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov, will last until Sept. 20. It will gather world, European and Russian champions from all over the country, RIA Novosti reports.

Tyson arrived in Moscow on Sept. 5 and was only supposed to stay in Russia until last week. However he is still in Moscow, taking part in numerous public events, Interfax reports.

Neeka’s Mom, by the way, had her own run in with the ear chewing maniac while out grocery shopping the other day…

Turned out Mike Tyson was on collision course with my mama - he was smiling to everyone around him as he walked right at her (and she right at him), and when their eyes met, mama did something that almost gave my papa a heart attack when she retold the scene to him: she smiled, then lifted her hand to her ear, pulled it very gently a few times, and winked at Tyson.

Believe it or not, but Tyson winked back at her!

On Friday I wrote briefly about a brewing conflict between Chechens and Kalmyks in the Buddhist Russian Republic of Kalmykia, promising to update when I got back from my weekend away. 

Well, judging by the lack of news reports, the situation seems to be more or less under control, with tensions - for the moment at least - being kept down to a simmer.  Largely, I think, this is down to the government’s decision to send 1,100 troops into the region in a show of force designed to intimidate people into going home instead of picking fights with each other and to physically keep people apart, if necessary. 

In Yandyki, troops backed up by armored vehicles patrolled the streets. They barred nonresidents from entering the village.

Kalmyk police stepped up security on the region’s border with Astrakhan on Friday, acting Kalmyk Interior Minister Vadim Korneyev told Interfax.

It’s nice to be able to report on a Russian military success, for once. 

I did learn a few things about Kalmykia from the comments though - not only is the region Buddhist, but it contains Europe’s only desert, says Venichka.  I even learned from Otto that the US government had to class the region as European at the end of WW2 in order to allow in Kalmyk refugees. 

J Otto Pohl, by the way, has just posted an excellent Really Short History of the Kalmyks on his blog, and plans to post more on the Kalmyk diaspora, much of which is based in the US, soon. [Update 24/6: See The Kalmyk Diaspora in the US and the intruigingly titled How the Kalmyks Became White]

Finally, while searching for more information about the region, I found this other piece of unhappy news - Kalmykia is now officially one of the Russian regions affected by Avian Flu, an epidemic which seems to be spreading steadily Westwards across Russia.

According to Mosnews, tensions are rising between Chechens and Kalmyks in the Russian republic of Kalmykia.  A number of large fights (mostly fist-fights, as far as I can tell, rather than fire-fights) have erupted, and at least one person has been killed:

On Friday, the Astrakhan region settlement of Yandyki, the site of massive unrest on Thursday, was surrounded by the military and special forces. Roads into the area have been blocked off by military servicemen and interior troops. An group of investigators is working in the area trying to determine what caused the massive street fight between Kalmyks and Chechens. Also on Friday, deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel arrived on site to take matters under his personal control.

The conflict between the Chechens and the Kalmyks began in Yandyki in February. The town is a small settlement of about 3,500 people. Among those, 237 are ethnic Chechens, and 288 are ethnic Kalmyks. On February 22, three drunk Chechens — Isa Magomedov, Yusup Abubakarov, and Adlan Khaladov desecrated a local cemetery. Since then, the town has suffered from periodic clashes between the Kalmyks residing in the town and the Chechens from the outskirts. One of those clashes — on the night of August 15 — ended in the death of a local resident.

According to law enforcement authorities, on that day about a hundred Chechens arrived in the town and incited a massive street fight with local residents. At a local bar, about 25 Chechens attacked 24-year-old Nikolai Boldyryov. Boldyryov ended up getting shot in the head. Afterwards, riot police detained 14 people who had been involved in the fight. Local prosecutors launched a criminal case. Meanwhile, Boldyryov’s funeral on August 18 was attended by about 100 friends and relatives from a nearby town in Kalmykia, the predominantly Buddhist republic north of Chechnya.

After the funeral, the Kalmyks grew even more aggressive, and were joined by local residents, forming a 300-strong crowd that went through the town beating Chechens and setting fire to their homes.

Kalmykia, about which I know virtually nothing, is a republic in the North Caucasus with a Buddhist majority, and a tiny (around 2%) Chechen minority.  It doesn’t border Chechnya, and my first impression is that I don’t think we can really link this in too closely with the Chechen conflict at this stage, although that could change if opportunists manage to get into the region. 

All of the above info, by the way, I gleaned from this Wikipedia page.  (In fact, I’ve just noticed, it’s the only Buddhist territory in Europe).   

I’m off for the weekend, so I’ve got no time right now to investigate more deeply.  Feel free to pass on any information you have in the comments, and I’ll take a deeper look at the subject next week if there is any substance to the story.

Chechenpress has just published a copy of the transcript of ABC’s interview with Shamil Basayev.  It makes hideous reading, particularly Basayev’s delusional comments (whether he believes his own words or not, I’m not sure) about who is to blame for the deaths of those hundreds of children at Beslan.  Of course, says Basayev, it’s the Russians who are guilty:

ANDREI BABITSKY: What kind of feelings did you experience after Beslan?

SHAMIL BASAYEV: To tell you honestly, I was shocked. I swear, I never expected that. I never thought Putin was so blood-thirsty that he would manifest his thirst for blood. I didn’t think he would. When confronted with a more serious situation, I thought they’d try to make some move like gas or something. That at least they wouldn’t do anything against children. That was my thinking. I figured that the more brutal I could make it, the quicker they’d get the message. I thought it would work. But it’s not sinking in yet.

I never thought there would be small children in Beslan. It’s a school. Anyway, the youngest would be a 6-year-old. There is a kindergarten across the road. I didn’t see anyone. We studied maps, looked at all. I made the plans. And I told the commander, I told him, when Russian officials show up, hand them our demands officially and then release all less than 10 years old, no questions asked. That’s what I told him. These were my conditions.

Basayev goes on to give the same explanation for the two hijacked planes that exploded, and the tragic end to the 2002 Dubrovka Theatre seige.

I was interested, also, to see the justifications that Andrei Babitsky, the interviewer gave for his conduct.  Particularly disturbing was this explanation as to why he didn’t inform the authorities in Russia about his meeting with/discover of Basayev.  Note that he doesn’t say he didn’t think they would believe the information he could give about Basayev’s whereabouts.  Instead, he justifies himself by saying that they wouldn’t believe his innocence, that he didn’t have a connection to Basayev. 

Many of my fellow Russians will ask why I haven’t informed the Federal security service of this meeting, so then they could locate and apprehend a terrorist and criminal. My answer to this is, I absolutely distrust Russian power agencies. I’m convinced they wouldn’t believe my words that I didn’t know anything. They would decide that I’m concealing facts as to Basayev’s whereabouts. I know how in, and not only in Chechnya, the special services and the functions of the interior ministry work. How many people disappear without a trace. How many people undergo horrendous, unbelievable, inhuman torture. I think I’d subject myself to torture if I contacted the Federal security service. I think it’s unwise and illogical to voluntarily choose such a fate for yourself.

Now I don’t have a lot of faith in the Russian security services myself.  However, Babitsky’s justification here strikes me as rather odd.  If anything, I would think he would be equally, if not more, afraid of any reprisals from Chechens angry that he had turned in Basayev than torture from the Russian security services.

I also wonder if there was an aspect of wishing to maintain good relations with Basayev and his coterie, just in case the opportunity for a future interview should arise…