The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

ACPC Weekly News UPDATE
April 26, 2010 – May 2, 2010

Militant attacks mar May Day celebrations in the North Caucasus

A series of attacks by suspected militants overshadowed the festivities held during the annual May Day holiday celebrations in Kabardino-Balkaria and Ingushetia. In Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, one person was reported killed and 20 more injured during an explosion inside a hippodrome. The victim was later identified as a 94-year-old WWII veteran. In the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, a gunman was killed when he opened fire on police officers at a wrestling tournament where the republic’s president and other high-ranking officials were in attendance. Also last week, a suicide bomber killed two police officers in the republic of Dagestan. Authorities suspect members of the North Caucasus Emirate, a radical militant group that has previously claimed responsibility for other terrorist attacks in Russia, including the recent suicide blasts in the Moscow subway, to be responsible for the attacks. The group has been officially outlawed and designated as a terrorist organization by the Russian parliament.

On April 29, Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), Co-Chairman of the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission), introduced legislation urging the U.S. Department of State to officially designate the Caucasus Emirate as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. “The United States and Russia must stand together in this ongoing struggle against violent fanatics,” Hastings said.

Related articles:

Deadly blast overshadows Russia’s May Day events
Agence France-Press, May 1, 2010
Attacks rattle 2 republics in Caucasus on May Day
The New York Times, May 1, 2010
Suicide bomber kills 2 in Russia’s Dagestan
Washington Post, April 29, 2010
Hastings calls for Caucasus Emirate to be on terrorist list
U.S. Helsinki Commission, April 29, 2010
Gunman killed after opening fire on police officers in Nazran
Caucasian Knot, May 1, 2010 (in Russian)

Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov implicated in critic’s murder in Austria

Officials in Austria concluded the 15-month investigation of the murder of Umar Israilov, a one-time bodyguard of the Kremlin-appointed Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, who became a vocal critic of Kadyrov after emigrating to Austria. In a case filed at the European Court of Human Rights, Israilov had accused the Chechen president of personally torturing him and other detainees in secret prisons in Chechnya. Three Chechen men were detained and interrogated in connection to the murder. According to Gerhard Jarosch, the spokesman for the Vienna public prosecutor’s office, the counterterrorism authorities who conducted the investigation “assume that Kadyrov is behind the murder of Israilov.” Kadyrov denied any involvement in Israilov’s murder.

Last week Kadyrov was also accused of ordering the failed attempt on the life of Isa Yamadayev, the brother of Sulim and Ruslan Yamadayev, the one-time powerful rivals of Kadyrov who were killed in apparent assassinations. Ruslan Yamadaev was shot in broad day light in Moscow in September 2008 and Sulim Yamadaev was gunned down in Dubai in March 2009. Investigators in Dubai established the direct involvement of Adam Delimkhanov, a relative of Kadyrov and a member of the Russian parliament, in the murder of Sulim Yamadayev. Chechen authorities have denied the charge.