Ingushetia - The Cars That Go Boom

Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, president of Ingushetia

Something odd just happened in Ingushetia yesterday morning. A suicide carbomber targeted a motorcade near Nazran with the president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who is still being treated in hospital for wounds to the chest and head. At least one bodyguard died, several others were wounded. There are conflicting reports as to whether the car was parked by the side of the road or made a maneuver to ram the presidents vehicle, but it seems there was in any case a person in the car triggering the explosion, with the force of an estimated 70kg of TNT.
Those who have followed the conflict in Caucasus know that suicide attacks have been extremely rare, and carbombs even rarer. They have appeared in the conflict as many resistance fighters gradually have turned from a mildly muslim (sufi) nationalism to embrace a more hardline saudi style jihad oriented internationalist salafist ideology, often financed by Saudi nationals concerned about their muslim brethren.
This attack is the latest in a series of high profile assassinations in Ingushetia and Dagestan countering a trend towards stability the latest months. Neighbouring Chechnya has been largely successfully bullied into russian-friendly submission by president Kadyrov and his ruthless above-the-law private army, and in Ingushetia things were seemingly going towards more peace and accountability. President Yevkurov inherited an Ingushetia practically on the brink of civil war in october 2008. His ex-KGB predecessor Murat Zyazikov had become an impossible figure and stepped down after months of draconian repression, including shooting, beating or arresting just about anybody, only further fanned anger and swelled the ranks of militant islamists in the area.
In this context, Yevkurov raised quite some eyebrows as the former military commander (decorated fighting militants in Chechnya) started actually talking to people about their grievances, making serious progress in stopping local blood feuds, and getting serious about cracking down on corruption even when involving other high politicians. In fact, a couple of weeks ago he even announced his own cell phone number on national TV so that people could call him in person if they had a problem with authorities. Stunts like these of course ensured him some widespread popularity, but also got him some quite powerful enemies.
The usual channels of information from guerrilla salafists welcomed the attack on the "apostate puppet ringleader" but seem not to know who was responsible, fanning suspicions that this was a very local initiative, possibly facilitated with intelligence provided by politicians and people in administration with a lot to loose if Yevkurov's war on corruption had gone on.
Around 60 persons have died so far this year in salafist jihadist related attacks and government crackdowns in Ingushetia. But this is an improvement from the situation just a year ago when the whole little country seemed to be breaking apart into another full scale caucasian war between islamic rebels and russian paramilitaries.
If the seriously wounded Yevkurov is now replaced with a tougher Moscow-backed hardliner chosen for anti-terrorist credentials, a return to random police and paramilitary violence could easily push the country, and indeed the region, back into an even greater chaos.