Vladikavkaz terrorist attack confirms tension in North Caucasus

Russia’s claims that it is controlling the situation in the Caucasus is under scrutiny as it faces serious problems which are practically out of control. Separatism, which has been encouraged by Moscow in Georgia, has been flourishing in the North Caucasus and undermining Russian dominance. Special operations carried out by the Kremlin have yielded precious few results while terrorist militants carry out wide scale attacks on Russian official bodies as well as its full citizens. There are terrorist attacks in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia and South Ossetia. Proof that the Russians are losing control of the situation was seen in the explosion by a suicide bomber of an automobile in the central market place in Vladikavkaz on September 9. Preliminary casualties are 17 dead and around 138 wounded.

The information spread from official Russian sources that the terrorist was Ingush. However, this has yet to be confirmed. Nevertheless the tension between the Ingush and Ossetian population has become aggravated so the Russian officials will try to prevent such developments if the terrorist proves to be of Ingush nationality. Leaders of either Ingushetia or North Ossetian administrations tried to calm the situation, saying that inter-ethnic confrontation is not taking over. So far it has been proved that the owner of the car, certain Dobriev, is Ingush, however he claims to have sold the car the day before and it is not so far proven that he is connected with the terrorist attack. Most probably it would have been very risky to give one's own car for the purposes of carrying out a terrorist attack. But still the tension between Ingush and Ossetians is here.

Ingush public organizations condemned the terrorist attack, claiming that terrorists have no ethnic or religious representation. Ingush and Ossetian relations have been strained since Ingush National deportation in the last century carried out by the Soviet Union, when almost the whole nation was deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia while their houses were appropriated by the Ossetians who did not return back the houses after the Ingush were allowed to return after Stalin’s death.

Russian law enforcement bodies are looking for other versions of the story as well, the most popular of which is the so called Georgian scenario. Moskovsky Komsomolets concludes that Georgians are no good at terrorist attacks but they pay money for others to perpetrate the acts. Of course, Georgia categorically denies such allegations. Meanwhile, Chechen leader and Emir of Caucasus Doku Umarov took the responsibility for the terrorist attack who in his TV appearance threatened that the special operations will be carried out all over Russian territory again.

It should be said that the Vladikavkaz terrorist attack is just a small episode in a bloody chain of events, which prove that Russian policy is unsustainable in the Caucasus and that the problems cannot be solved by force, as Moscow is trying to do. In fact the Kremlin’s unwise policy of supporting separatism in Georgia and recognizing the independence of breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia has backfired onto Moscow itself.