RUSSIAN OFFICIALS believe that Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov may have been among 17 militants killed in fierce fighting in the restive North Caucasus.
At least three members of the security services also died during the clashes in Ingushetia, one of several mostly Muslim republics that have become embroiled in a struggle between federal forces and guerrillas that originated in Chechnya more than 15 years ago.
Prosecutors this week charged Umarov with masterminding a suicide-bomb attack that killed 37 people at Moscow’s Domodedovo international airport in January.
Umarov had admitted responsibility for that explosion and for a double suicide-bombing on the Moscow metro that took 40 lives a year ago. “As a result of a targeted air strike and a land operation, a militants’ base was destroyed, at which suicide bombers had been trained,” said Nikolai Sintsov, a spokesman for Russia’s National Anti-terrorism Committee.
“According to preliminary information, 17 bandits were destroyed, and two participants in the Domodedovo bombing were detained.”
Ingushetia’s Kremlin-appointed leader, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, claimed that some of Umarov’s senior deputies were killed in the operation, while Russian news agencies quoted unnamed security officials as saying the rebel leader may also have perished.
“I am certain that if the assumptions prove right, this will have only good consequences for our country,” said Moscow-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Analysts noted, however, that officials, including Mr Kadyrov, have mistakenly announced Umarov’s death at least seven times before.
They also observed that the killing of several previous rebel leaders did nothing to quell violence in the North Caucasus, which has spilled out from Chechnya into Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Fuelled by poverty, criminality, Islamist extremism, the desire for independence, official corruption and brutality, the insurgency is seen as a possible threat to the 2014 Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi.