Chechen president vows to fight Ingushetia rebels

Reuters ^ | June 23, 2009 | Conor Humphries

[Tailgunner Joe]

MOSCOW - Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said he had been ordered by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to fight insurgents in the neighboring region of Ingushetia after its leader was gravely wounded in a bomb attack.

Kadyrov's harsh tactics have brought relative stability to Chechnya since he was elected in 2007 after more than a decade of war. But fellow Kremlin appointees have failed to stem spikes in violence in neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia.

With Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov fighting for his life in hospital, Kadyrov said he had been ordered by Medvedev to run cross-border operations.

"He told me to intensify actions ... including in Ingushetia," Kadyrov said in an interview with Reuters. "I will personally control the operations ... and I am sure in the near future there will be good results."

Yevkurov was appointed in October to replace Murat Zyazikov, who was accused of fanning the insurgency with heavy-handed measures. But the situation has deteriorated, with a series of high-profile attacks over the past three weeks.

Yevkurov was badly wounded on Monday when a suicide bomber by the roadside destroyed his armored Mercedes car. Russia's Vesti-24 channel said investigators believed it was a female suicide bomber whose name had been established. ....

"If they used torture and detentions (in Ingushetia) there wouldn't be any Wahhabism, terrorism," Kadyrov told Reuters. "It is the lack of action of certain leaders," that is to blame.

He said cross-border operations with Yevkurov had achieved considerable success, killing over 30 rebels in recent months.

Accompanied by an entourage of 20 in the lobby of Moscow's President Hotel, Kadyrov rejected the criticism of his heavy-handed tactics as naive.

The rebels "don't have any humanity," he said. "We will take no captives, we will destroy them. As long as they exist there will be blood."