Terrorism in Dagestan. The language of bombs

Islamic rebels and corruption threaten another piece of the Russian jigsaw

A MOUNTAINOUS region peopled by warriors speaking dozens of languages is never easy to run. In Dagestan, Islamic terrorists are trying to make it impossible. Dagestan seems a different country from Russia. Nearly everyone is Muslim, and public buildings are festooned with portraits of Imam Shamil, an anti-Russian leader in the 19th century. Yet Russia is what holds this republic together. Its 2.5m-strong people, comprising 34 ethnic groups, use Russian as their common language. The federal budget provides most local-government revenues. Few Dagestanis hesitate to profess loyalty to Moscow.

So why is an insurgency that aims to put in place a caliphate growing fast? The list of incidents is endless. This week a bomb blast killed two policemen, gunmen shot dead a local politician and Russian security forces said they had killed a rebel leader. Last week an explosion blew up ten soldiers outside a bath-house in Makhachkala; a few days earlier, nine policemen were wounded. A bomb derailed a train; a minister was blown up in his car; a police chief was shot on a mountain road. Most such attacks take place in or around Makhachkala, a seaside town where cattle wander across roads and drivers happily ignore the law. The only rule worth respecting, say motorists, is to keep away from police vehicles: they tend to explode.

The authorities blame the violence on Islamic revolutionaries. A group called Shariah Jamaat took responsibility for the bath-house killings. Abdulmanap Musaev, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, says foreign jihadists are recruiting locals “to destabilise Dagestan and then the rest of the north Caucasus.” Another source of trouble is Chechnya, where a decade of war, black-market weapons sales and poverty have bred extreme lawlessness. Chechen rebels, who have staged numerous forays into Dagestan, work alongside Dagestani insurgents - and vice versa.

Yet many believe that the true source of the trouble is neither mysterious “international terrorists” nor fundamentalists, but the corrupt security forces and government. The head of Dagestan's government since 1987 has been Magomedali Magomedov, a canny politician who has pleased the Kremlin by keeping a lid on local discontent. But under his rule, Dagestan has also become a prime example of a government that acts as a family business.

As President Vladimir Putin's troubleshooter in the region, Dmitry Kozak, said in a leaked report, the entire north Caucasus is largely run by “clan-corporate associations.” That explains why many in Makhachkala are surprisingly blase about the bombings. “Serves them right,” one resident grumbles, as a patrol car passes. “Sad as it is, many ordinary people are not that concerned about the attacks on the police, and they have a solid reason - because the police in Dagestan are not law-enforcement officers, they serve certain clans,” says Isalmagomed Khabiev, chairman of an independent small-business union.

Officials insist that corruption is no worse than elsewhere in Russia, but admit it undercuts the fight against crime and terrorism. “For money, anyone can go anywhere, even abroad,” one officer says. Corruption runs “right through the Interior Ministry, from top to bottom,” adds another. Hatred for the government translates into sympathy for the insurgents, says Mr Khabiev. “The bombers are not really all about caliphates, but about unhappiness with the local authorities, with this criminal regime.”

Islamic rebels and corruption threaten another piece of the Russian jigsaw.