The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

ACPC Weekly News UPDATE
November 23, 2009 – November 29, 2009

Gruesome beheadings in Kabardino-Balkaria bring back flashbacks of Chechen wars
Last Monday authorities discovered the decapitated bodies of a court bailiff and a police investigator in the trunk of a car just north of the republic’s capital, Nalchik. Militants had vowed to behead law enforcement officials in response to an article published in one of the local newspapers titled “The Shura Has Been Beheaded” shortly before the murders. The article asserted that the militants’ “shura,” the governing body of Kabardino-Balkaria’s armed underground, had been neutralized due to successful counter-terrorist operations carried out by the security services during which high ranking militants were either killed or captured. Authorities believe that the beheadings could be a symbolic gesture to counter claims that the militant underground in Kabardino-Balkaria is neutralized. Two days after the incident, gunmen also killed a military officer and wounded a policeman during a skirmish in the centre of Nalchik.

Kabardino-Balkaria has been struggling with its own home grown militant underground and in 2005, a large group of militants carried out a brazen attack in the republic’s capital targeting the security services during which more than 100 people, including 14 civilians, were killed.

The latest beheadings sent shockwaves throughout Russia and brought back disturbing memories from the devastating military campaigns in Chechnya during which Chechen rebels frequently carried out and filmed decapitations of captured Russian soldiers.

Related articles:

Russia: 2 beheaded bodies found
The New York Times, November 24, 2009
The Shura has beheaded
Gazeta.ru, November 24, 2009 (in Russian)
Deadly train attack could signal new front in Russia’s domestic terrorist threat
Following Friday’s deadly bombing of the “Nevsky Express” train between Moscow and St. Petersburg, authorities ruled the attack that killed 26 people was an act of terrorism. Almost immediately, speculation was raised that militants from the North Caucasus were responsible for the bombing as Chechen rebels have carried out numerous terrorist attacks outside of the North Caucasus in the past. Authorities named Pavel Kosolapov, an ethnic Russian and a known member of the North Caucasus armed underground, as a suspect and potential mastermind of the bombing. According to authorities, he converted to Islam and joined the militant underground shortly after returning from his military tour in Chechnya. Kosolapov is believed to have orchestrated a number of attacks carried out by militants inside Russia including the 2007 attack on the “Nevsky Express” which did not cause any casualties at the time. Two days before Friday’s bombing, an ethnic Ingush was found guilty in connection to the 2007 attack.

Friday’s bombing raised concerns that the conflict in Russia’s troublesome North Caucasus is spilling over into other regions and that more attacks could follow including suicide bombings, which have occurred with alarming frequency in the North Caucasus recently. Alexei Malashenko, an expert on Islam in Russia at the Carnegie Endowment in Moscow, stated that although it was too early to tell if militants from the North Caucasus were behind the attack, “there could be links between the explosion and radical Islamic activists.”

Another bombing of a passenger train in Dagestan over the weekend added to the speculation of North Caucasus militant involvement in the “Nevsky Express” attack and prompted Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, to state that the two attacks were “analogous.” There were no casualties reported in the Dagestan train bombing.

However, officials did not rule out that Russian nationalists could also be responsible for the bombing and media sources reported that the Russian branch of an international neo-Nazi organization known as “Combat18” was among the first groups to claim responsibility for the attack. None of the rebel groups in the North Caucasus has claimed responsibility for either of the attacks.