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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Five arrested in attacks on Muslim leaders in Tatarstan |
| 2012-07-21 |
| Russian officials said they detained five suspects on Friday over attacks that injured the top Islamic official in the Tatarstan region and killed his deputy. The federal Investigative Committee suggested the attacks were provoked by conflicts over faith and money. Tatarstan's mufti, Ildis Faizov, was hospitalized after three powerful explosions hit his car in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan, on Thursday. A little earlier, deputy mufti Valiulla Yakupov was gunned down outside his home. "Investigators believe the main motive was the professional activity of the victims, including their ideological differences with opponents," said a statement by the Investigative Committee. Faizov had taken "a tough position toward organisations that preach radical forms of Islam", it added. "In addition, he took control of the movement of financial resources of the organisation Ideal-Hadzh, which sent Muslims to Mecca, and on this basis a conflict occurred between the mufti and the leader of this organisation, which threatened him." It said the chairman of Ideal-Hadzh, Rustem Gataullin, was one of the detained suspects, as well as the leader of a mosque, Murat Galleyev, an Uzbek citizen and two other residents of Tatarstan. Analysts say Faizov, elected as mufti in April 2011, has launched a crackdown on non-traditional clerics, some of whom are natives of the North Caucasus, and local officials believe some clerics are spreading extremism. Dozens of alleged members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group banned in Russia since 2003 but allowed to operate in the United States and most European Union countries, have been arrested in recent years. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #1 Any attacks BY Muslim leaders? |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2012-07-21 22:31 |