Chechnya’s security situation is improving as Islamist insurgents are being rooted out mercilessly, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said in an interview published Wednesday, the same day that a suicide bomber blew herself up beside a police car in Grozny, injuring at least six people.
Bombings in Chechnya do not mean that the situation there is worse than elsewhere, Kadyrov told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
“Yes they bomb. And in London they bomb, and in America — everywhere they bomb,” he said.
Kadyrov argued that security was actually becoming better. “Regarding those few blasts, we have intensified the battle with the bandits,” he said, adding that his forces had recently killed more than 100 rebels in Chechnya and the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan.
“We have cornered the bandits, and soon we will finish them off. … A little patience, and we will end it all,” he said.
In Wednesday’s suicide attack, a woman blew herself up as she approached a traffic police car in the Chechen capital, Interfax reported. The blast killed the attacker and seriously injured two policemen and between four and six civilians, Interfax said, citing conflicting police reports.
The North Caucasus has been plagued by violence over the past few months, and numerous officials have been killed or injured, including Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who survived an assassination attempt in June.
Kadyrov suggested in the interview that the Ingush leader, who has been praised for his moderate tactics, was not doing enough to fight the insurgents and offered to send assistance.
“Yevkurov now needs to do more than just say that he is a peacemaker. … He needs to step up the fight against those evil ones. And we, if necessary, we will help,” he said.
On President Dmitry Medvedev’s orders, Chechen forces entered Ingushetia to assist local law enforcement officials after the attack on Yevkurov.
Kadyrov said he did not know how many rebels were hiding in Chechnya but stressed that they could not expect mercy from him. “We will not take any of them alive,” he said. “Wherever they are, we will shoot and kill them for they understand no other language. The bandits are in agony now.”
He also claimed that some attackers were drugged by their commanders. “Because they have no way out, their commanders stupefy young fighters with pills,” he said.
He conceded that Chechnya’s political and religious leaders, including himself, might be partly to blame for the fact that young men were joining the ranks of the rebels. But he stressed that he was tirelessly working on improvement. “Every day I meet regional officials and imams. We identify our failures and mistakes, exclude and correct them, and implement policies in the name of the Almighty and in the name of Russia’s integrity,” he said.
Kadyrov also renewed his promise to step down once Chechnya was in good shape. “I will step down. If things in the republic are up and running — immediately. I set myself a five-year term,” he said. Kadyrov was appointed president in February 2007.
Pressed by reporters on what he would do after resigning, he said he would tour Russia to lecture about religious extremism. “What is extremism, what is Wahhabism, what is war — I will explain that to everyone. I can do this very well,” he said.