Under-fire Putin ally quits as head of violent region

OPPOSITION ACTIVISTS in the violence-plagued Russian region of Ingushetia are celebrating the resignation of local leader Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB officer who critics say instituted a corrupt reign of terror in the tiny Caucasus republic.

Mr Zyazikov stepped down after failing to quell organised crime and rebel groups seeking independence and Islamic rule in Ingushetia, a mainly Muslim region that has overtaken neighbouring Chechnya as Russia’s most violent province.

President Dmitry Medvedev immediately accepted the resignation of the man appointed in 2002 by then president Vladimir Putin, a former KGB colleague who was seen as the Ingush leader’s close personal ally.

“This is an absolutely voluntary decision,” insisted Mr Zyazikov, who has survived at least one assassination attempt and several of whose relatives have been kidnapped and attacked. “I am going to work in Moscow,” he said.

Ingushetia has suffered almost daily attacks on security forces and officials in recent months, and came to international attention in September when an opposition leader, Magomed Yevloyev, was arrested and shot dead by police after arriving on a passenger plane that was also carrying Mr Zyazikov. An official inquiry found that a police officer had shot him in the head by accident.

“Hundreds of people have been kidnapped, all our money has been taken by this man,” opposition activist Maksharip Aushev said of Mr Zyazikov. “We are celebrating this great victory.”

Mr Aushev said hundreds of people went out into the streets of Nazran, capital of 470,000-strong Ingushetia, to rejoice over Mr Zyazikov’s departure.

Analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said “Zyazikov was a Putin protege . . . and this decision would have been made by Putin. The situation in Ingushetia is out of control . . . The vast majority of the people are against Zyazikov and that has helped the underground Islamists. There is lots of personal anger against him.”

Mr Medvedev nominated a distinguished paratroop commander, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, to be the new leader of Ingushetia.

Mr Yevkurov led the Russian troops who in 1999 took control of Pristina airport in Kosovo before advancing Nato troops could reach it, an operation that angered Washington but was seen at home as an audacious coup. He has also led operations against Chechen rebels.

“If this person works for the good of the people, if this person is not corrupt, and does not himself violate the law . . . I think there will be order,” said another opposition leader, Magomed Khazbiyev.