Security

Chechen Warlord's 'Assassination Vacation' in Dubai

Opponents and critics of Ramzan Kadyrov — the pro-Kremlin president of the Chechen Republic, pictured here with gold-plated pistol — have a habit of meeting violent, unexpected ends. Earlier this year, Umar Israilov, a former bodyguard to Kadyrov, was tracked down and killed in Vienna; he had disclosed information on torture and extrajudicial killings in […]

Kadyrov_gun_b01 Opponents and critics of Ramzan Kadyrov -- the pro-Kremlin president of the Chechen Republic, pictured here with gold-plated pistol -- have a habit of meeting violent, unexpected ends. Earlier this year, Umar Israilov, a former bodyguard to Kadyrov, was tracked down and killed in Vienna; he had disclosed information on torture and extrajudicial killings in Chechnya. And most famously, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered outside her home in Moscow in late 2006. She had been researching a story on misdeeds by Kadyrov's militia; the murder remains unsolved.

The body count keeps rising. Yesterday, Sulim Yamadayev, a former commander of pro-Moscow forces and a rival to Kadyrov, was gunned down in Dubai; police in Dubai detained a Russian national in the killing. Through a spokesman, Kadyrov denied any connection. The Associated Press reports:

'We hope that law enforcement agencies will find the killer,' said Ali Karimov, a spokesman for President Kadyrov in the Chechen capital, Grozny, reached by telephone.

When pressed for more details and about how he knew Yamadayev was dead, Karimov hung up the phone.

Students of counterinsurgency should pay more attention to Russia's approach to pacifying Chechnya. The Kremlin may have succeeded in putting down a separatist insurgency in the north Caucasus by bringing former rebels like Kadyrov and Yamadayev on side -- but the tenuous calm in the republic has come at the price of empowering local warlords.

[PHOTO: Yuga.ru]

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