Chechen rebels' deadly return

Ingushetia may have been chosen because of its weak defenses and taxed capabilities. The province has hosted tens of thousands of Chechen refugees for years. Ingushetia's authoritarian leader, a Kremlin loyalist, forced the last refugee camp to close recently - though many have refused to return to the uncertainties and violence across the border. Human rights groups have documented frequent abuses by Russian forces and pro-Kremlin militia. Washington, too, has voiced concern over abuses in the troubled republic.

"Inside Chechnya itself, it would be very difficult for [such an attack]," says Antonenko of IISS. "But this attack is a demonstration to show the Russian side that [the rebels] are still capable of doing something major."

Many analysts say the show of force fulfilled a recent promise. Separatist Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, elected president in 1997 and now accused of terrorism by the Kremlin, vowed that rebels would shift tactics against Russian security services, in an interview with US-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty published last Thursday.

"We are planning to make changes in our tactics," warned Mr. Maskhadov. "If so far most of our effort was focused on acts of sabotage, from now on we'll be launching big attacks."

Maskhadov said Russian forces and intelligence units in Chechnya "still terrorize people. They still carry out their night raids in villages and homes. They still seize people who vanish without trace afterward ... [and have] started to attack the relatives, sisters, and wives of the mujahideen."

Maskhadov claimed that "every day we see numbers increase" of recruits who join "out of anger."

The rebels "will not stop our struggle, and we will not back off as long as the enemy tramples our soil," Maskhadov said. "If the Russians think they are going to win this war, they are wrong."

Pro-Moscow officials dismiss such threats. "They want to destabilize the situation in the republic," says Vasily Likhachev, a Chechen member of the Federation Council in Moscow who noted a recent attempt on the life of the Ingush president.

"When they feel they are losing ground they might use different methods," says Mr. Likhachev. "When there are new signs of stability ... they might have needed to prove their strength and activity."

"I believe that this is the last convulsive attempt of forces about to lose," says Umar Sapraliev, of the Ingush republic's office in Moscow. "They do not have the population's support."

Still, the cost of such activity may be high, in a region that has seen two Chechen wars in a decade. "The whole nexus of those regions is very unstable," says Antonenko. "It's a result of the complete abandonment of the North Caucasus in the last years of Putin's presidency, where they put artificial measures to stabilize Chechnya, but completely ignored what was happening [elsewhere]."

"I really fear that, in five years, we will see the North Caucasus - not just Chechnya - become increasingly unstable, with no solution at all coming from Moscow," Antonenko says.

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