Investigation of attack on anti-drag department produces no result

Two weeks have gone since a bold attack on the building of the Anti-Drug Department was committed, four people of the group on duty were shot dead, and many arms were seized. During his meeting with journalists right after the attack, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General for the South Federal District Nikolay Shepel announced versions of the happening. The first and the main version is that the attack was committed by the Yarmuk jamaat, the second one is that it was drug dealers' vengeance.

Members of the Yarmuk jamaat are considered to be natives of a Balkarian village, and the four killed men were Kabardians. "The rumors that the attack on the Anti-Drug Department is an anti-Kabardian action organized by Balkarians are very alarming," head of the Kabardino-Balkarian Human Rights Center Valery Khatazhukov said. "We think that this insinuation is an overt provocation aimed at achieving certain political goals. First, the fact itself of the existence of the Yarmuk jamaat as a very clandestine militant organization able to conduct such operations raises doubt. To a greater extent it exists virtually, in Internet. Our informed sources in Kabardino-Balkarian law enforcement agencies also have such an opinion."

"We suppose that certain forces purposefully try to play the national card in this situation so that to achieve their political goals related to the preservation of power in Kabardino-Balkaria. They show the Kremlin that they and nobody else are guarantors of the stability of tenuous peace in the republic," Mr Khatazhukov said. "It fits well in the myth created by the Kabardino-Balkarian ruling clan as long ago as the early 1990s that all national movements and political parties in the North Caucasus are separative and that the only stronghold of the Kremlin in the North Caucasus is the ruling group."