NCW, 7 Aug 08: Rebels Move Closer to Seizing Control of Ingushetia
.....According to guerrilla warfare theory, war has several stages. The first stage is when government forces try to destroy rebel squads in remote areas of a country, such as mountains or forests. Failing that, the war enters a second stage, in which the guerrillas initiate regular sabotage operations, coming closer to the main centers of the country (large settlements). If the rebels are successful and the security forces cannot disrupt them, the guerrillas begin offensive operations near or inside major populated areas. At the same time, the police and the army lock themselves inside their garrisons. The next stage—the collapse of the government— usually quickly follows.

One can see the way that guerrilla warfare followed this pattern during the American campaign in Vietnam, the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the first Russian military campaign in Chechnya. It appears that the same scenario is now unfolding in Ingushetia. The Ingush police and Russian armed forces in the republic now care more about their own safety than about the general security situation in the republic. Zyazikov and his government are located in the capital Magas, a fortress city heavily guarded by Russian military units. Kidnappings, a problem in Ingushetia that human rights activists like to talk about, have almost stopped now, a fact allowing one to reach the paradoxical conclusion that the more police officers get killed by the rebels, the fewer civilians are detained or kidnapped in the republic.

If we do not soon see any radical changes in Russian policy towards Ingushetia, the republic may in the near future become the first real province of the insurgents’ Caucasian Emirate.