Medvedev Lauds 'Success' Battling Insurgents In North Caucasus
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev inspects the paratroopers' equipment as he visits the a training ground in Novorossiisk region.
July 15, 2009
SOCHI, Russia -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said after meeting near Sochi with acting Ingushetian President Rashid Gaysanov that security forces have had "success" in their counterterrorism operation against Islamic militants in Ingushetia, RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service reports.
Medvedev did not specify what he meant by success or where it was achieved.
His statement comes amid a torrent of violence in the restive Russian republic that includes the deaths of a court official and one of his relatives killed early on July 15 when gunmen opened fire on the car they were riding in outside of Nazran, the republic's largest town.
In a separate incident also in Nazran, militants opened fire on the house of a local police chief. No one was hurt.
Attempts by the Russian authorities to bring the situation in Ingushetia under control suffered a blow on June 22 when Ingushetian President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt.
Islamic insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack. Yevkurov is still in serious condition in a Moscow hospital.