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Dagestan now most violent in Caucasus
Russia’s Dagestan region has overtaken its neighbours as the epicentre of violence in the North Caucasus, where the Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency. Analysts say the region’s proximity to Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, poses a major headache for the Kremlin.

In January-June, Dagestan saw 79 attacks by Islamist terrorists insurgents, compared to 61 in the same period of 2009, according to a report on Wednesday by terrorism experts at the US Monterey Institute for International Studies. This year’s attacks killed 52 members of the security forces. At least 172 rebels were killed across the North Caucasus as a whole and scores of civilians and state agents.

Nadira Isaeva, editor of Dagestani paper Chernovik, said official corruption drove youths to extremism. “When everything is being sold and bought the state no longer exists as an operator. People look for an alternative fate,” she said in an interview.

The tiny impoverished region of Ingushetia had the most bloodshed last year, with suicide bombs aimed at police and an attack on the Kremlin-backed leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov that left him fighting for his life.

The Dagestani branch of the insurgency said last month it was gaining ground because of the sympathies of the general population. “With the active support of locals, the power is transferring (to us),” it said in a statement on its site.

Another Dagestani paper, popular weekly Novoe Delo, has started a section to keep track of the death count in what it calls “the undeclared war”.
Posted by: ryuge 2010-07-30
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=302237