March 8,2008:
While Russia has, over the past nine years, eliminated separatist and
Islamic terrorists from Chechnya, they now find themselves with a potentially
worse situation in neighboring Ingushetia. Smaller than Chechnya, and with half
the population (about half a million), it has been hammered for the last year
by many Islamic terrorists who fled the situation in Chechnya (where the
Russians sent in 80,000 police and commandos, and made a deal with the
strongest clan leader to run a pro-Russian government). Determined not to make
the same mistakes they did in Chechnya, the Islamic radicals in Ingushetia
promptly went after the local police. Their aim was to terrorize the local cops
into leaving the Islamic radical groups (a few hundred men) alone. Then the
Islamic radicals could use Ingushetia as a base for attacks into adjacent
areas. This was what Chechnya was turned into during the late 1990s. In 1999
the Russians had had enough, and invaded with nearly 100,000 troops and police.
The fighting led to the deaths, or disappearance, of nearly 30,000 people. Russia does not want
to apply that solution to Ingushetia, as the Ingush have never been as much of
a problem as the Chechens (who have been fighting the Russians for over two
centuries.) But unless they can reconstitute and revive the Ingush police
force, the Islamic terrorists (and many guys who are basically Chechen
gangsters) will be able to start another crime wave, like the one that came out
of Chechnya in the late 1990s.