This week’s attack on the president of Ingushetia may have been an attempt to keep the leader of the southern Russian republic from cracking down on corruption, reports the BBC.
A suicide car bomber rammed President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov’s motorcade Monday morning, killing one bodyguard and wounding Yevkurov and several other bodyguards. Russian officials and correspondents initially blamed Islamic militants in the province. But that might not be the case, according to the BBC.
…it is clear the person who carried out this attack had detailed information about where and when the president's motorcade would be on the move. That makes some analysts wary of assuming that Islamic militants, fighting for independence from Russia, are the only possible suspects.
"A number of high-profile officials in the region were unhappy with Yevkurov's policies," says Grigory Shvedov, a leading regional expert. "Impending dismissals in the government were probably the reason for this attempted assassination.
"Yevkurov was planning to introduce order, to fight corruption and to sack politicians suspected of graft."
As I mentioned last week, Ingushetia has been the scene of several high-profile murders recently, including the recent shootings of a Supreme Court judge and a former deputy prime minister. In the wake of the attack on Yevkurov, Russia’s security service said it would send fresh reinforcements to the Caucasus. The LA Times reports on the mood in the Russian capital:
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.
Sochi itself is hardly the safest place in the region, with a series of bombings last year that left five people dead and wounded 19 – bombings that some observers have chalked up to criminal groups warring for territory. Last month, however, a Sochi police officer and a local cameraman admitted to carrying out the bombings. (The linked article is subscription-based, and the international media have not been covering the story, and there’s no word on what their motives are alleged to have been. The only recent story I could find was this, on the construction woes surrounding the future Olympic site.)
At any rate, if major publications including Time magazine are to be believed, the system that Moscow created to run the North Caucasus – a region run by clans and soaked to the bone with corruption – is crumbling.
"The Kremlin is absolutely powerless," says Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at Moscow's Carnegie Institute. "They brought this situation on themselves by letting the local Ă©lite rule." After the fall of communism, Moscow, knowing that a secular or Orthodox Christian government would have little influence over the region's Muslim population, struck an informal deal with the republics: Moscow would appoint a governor who would be loyal to the Kremlin and, in return, that governor would remain in power provided no large-scale conflicts erupted.
But it's clear that system is breaking down and now leaders in Moscow are at a loss for a solution. Sending Russian troops into these areas would not be effective, as keeping track of insurgents is an almost impossible task. Blocking funds to the republics is also not an option. "It would just result in a massive social upheaval and that's the last thing the Kremlin wants," says Malashenko.
Other Russian-related News
A Russian gang in Spain’s Costa del Sol was apparently trying a new twist on the old “I’ve got your BMW – pay me $5,000 to get it back”-- car-thievery scam, but it didn’t work out so well. The Independent reports:
The victim was warned that he would first feel feverish, then sweaty and dizzy, then he would vomit and die from a lethal virus, unless he paid €12,000 (£10,160) as his own ransom.
The Russian kidnappers who seized one of their compatriots on the Costa del Sol convinced him that they had injected him with an experimental virus developed by the KGB that would kill him in 24 hours. The hostage's only alternative was to hand over the cash, in return for the antidote "that only they possessed".
He was then freed, with the Russians expecting him to come rushing back, cash in hand. But, suspecting he was being taken for a ride, the terrified victim, who had been abducted in the popular Spanish coastal resort of Estepona, took a chance and sought refuge in the town's police station.
Estepona police had recently formed a special unit to deal with Russian organized crime; the unit quickly moved to arrest the kidnappers at the rendezvous point.
Serbia Investigating Subotic
Serbian police are looking into the assets of alleged cigarette smuggling king Stanko Subotic, writes Transitions Online in an analysis of Serbia’s new asset forfeiture program. Subotic, who fled to Switzerland, is being tried in absentia for his alleged role in organizing the cigarette smuggling trade when Serbia was under international sanctions in the 1990s. TOL reports that though Subotic’s assets on paper amount to a single Belgrade apartment, his assets in reality amount to more than €500 million. Serbia’s options at this point include requesting Switzerland to freeze Subotic’s assets in that country.
For more on Subotic’s role in the Balkan cigarette trade, click here.
Blast Kills Albania Politician
Police are blaming organized crime for planting the explosive device that killed a conservative Albanian politician last week as he was driving through northern Albania. Aleksander Keka, 34, who leads Albania’s opposition Christian Democratic Party, was killed when the device exploded near Shkodra, a city some 75 miles north of the capital Tirana. (It wasn’t clear whether the bomb was planted on Keka’s car or exploded on the roadside.) The AP reports:
Christian Democratic Party leader Nard Ndoka called Keka's death an act of terrorism and said he had been waiting to meet the regional leader in Shkodra when the explosion occurred.
"It was a clear political attack, a terrorist act," Ndoka said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. He said he believed the bomb had been detonated by remote control, based on accounts given by local residents near the scene of the blast.
Police alleged in a statement that Keka had ties with organized crime groups who may have been responsible for the explosion that killed him, but Ndoka angrily rejected that possibility.
"That is a dirty slander ... Clearly, this act was politically inspired," he said.
Italy: More Arrests in Raids, Stings
Italian police last week arrested 13 people in western Sicily on suspicion of aiding a man police called “the last of the great fugitives.” Police say that Matteo Messina Denaro is among the handful of mobsters vying for control of the Sicilian Mafia, and that the arrests mean they are one step closer to catching him. Also last week, authorities in Venezuela arrested a top Italian drug-trafficking middleman as he left his apartment in Caracas. Meanwhile, defense-intelligence-terrorism behemoth Jane’s reports that Italy has been able to keep a lid on its smallest mafia, the Sacra Corona Unita.
It’s perhaps all this good news that has prompted several US states to send their cops to Italy for trainings and seminars, based on the idea that Italian experience with the mob can help US police with fighting Mexican drug cartels. Or it could be a great excuse for a pasta-and-wine junket.