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Summary:
In recent years, there have not been major terrorist attacks in Russia's North Caucasus -- a border area between the Black and Caspian Seas that includes the formerly breakaway Chechnya and other ethnic-based regions -- on the scale of the June 2004 raid on security offices in the town of Nazran (in Ingushetia), where nearly 100 security personnel and civilians were killed, or the September 2004 attack at the Beslan grade school (in North Ossetia), where 300 or more civilians were killed. This record, in part, might be attributed to government tactics. For instance, the Russian Interior (police) Ministry reported that its troops had conducted over 850 sweep operations ("zachistki") in 2007 in the North Caucasus, in which they surround a village and search every house, ostensibly in a bid to apprehend terrorists. Critics of the operations allege that the troops frequently engage in pillaging and gratuitous violence and are responsible for kidnapings for ransom and "disappearances" of civilians. Although it appears that major terrorist attacks have abated, there reportedly have been increasingly frequent small-scale attacks against government targets. Additionally, many ethnic Russian and other non-native civilians have been murdered or have disappeared, which has spurred the migration of most of the nonnative population from the North Caucasus. Russian authorities argue that foreign terrorist groups continue to operate in the North Caucasus and to receive outside financial and material assistance. The Bush Administration generally has supported the Russian government's efforts to combat terrorism in the North Caucasus. However, the Administration and Congress also have continued to raise concerns about the wide scope of human rights abuses committed by the Russian government in the North Caucasus. The Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2008 (P.L.110-161) included $8 million for humanitarian, conflict mitigation, human rights, civil society, and relief and recovery assistance for Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and North Ossetia. The Act also repeats language used for several years that directs that 60% of the assistance allocated to Russia will be withheld (excluding medical, human trafficking, and Comprehensive Threat Reduction aid) until the President certifies that Russia is facilitating full access to Chechnya for international non-governmental organizations providing humanitarian relief to displaced persons. The Administration's budget request for FY2009 calls for $3.5 million for conflict mitigation and reconciliation activities in the North Caucasus to help stem the spread of violence and instability. The request also calls for unspecified amounts of assistance for the North Caucasus to promote economic opportunities, youth employment, health, sanitation, and community development, and to discourage the spread of extremist ideologies.
