Chechen terrorists have claimed responsibility for blowing up the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant. A group calling itself Riyadhus Salihiyn has announced its plans for stepping up “economic warfare” against Russia with the primary targets being oil and gas pipelines, power plants and major industrial enterprises.
While these allegations are considered “idiotic” by Russian officials, the threat of terrorism is real. The recent Nazran attack, as well as the now almost daily terrorist attacks in Ingushetia, Dagestan and in what seemed like a pacified Chechnya, suggest that the North Caucasus situation is rapidly reaching a boiling point.
The “Afghanization” of the Caucasus has both internal and external causes. Unemployment, corruption, blood feuds, criminal standoffs and struggles between various local clans provide a fertile breeding ground for terrorism.
The other contributing factor is the financing and supply of weapons from abroad. The terrorists have been backed by rogue foreign groups and governments, but to suggest, as Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has done, that the United States, Britain and Israel gain from the instability in the region is irresponsible, to say the least. Making these kinds of statements does little to improve Russia’s relations with the West.
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