Islamic militant claims attack on two moderate Muslim leaders in Kazan
Moscow (AsiaNews / Agencies) -
An Islamic militant has claimed the double assassination of two moderate Muslim
religious leaders, took place last July 19 in Kazan,
capital of the Russian autonomous republic
of Tatarstan. Meanwhile,
prosecutors have announced that they are already on the trail of the militant
and his accomplices, while authorities have increased controls on religious
organizations for fear that Islamic radicalism from the North
Caucasus may be spreading in this Muslim majority region that has
always been considered among the most secular.
In
a video posted on Youtube a man - identified by experts as Mingaleyev Rais, 36
- claims to have ordered the attacks that seriously injured the mufti of
Tatarstan, Ildus Faizov, and killed Yakupov Waliullah, the spiritual head of
the republic's spiritual administration department.
In
the video, the militant calls himself the emir of the mujahideen of Tatarstan
and threatens new attacks against the "enemies of Allah". Speaking
under a banner written in Arabic, Mingaleyev asks the imams of the area to
adopt Sharia law. As
noted by Suleimanov Rais, Deputy Director of the Center for Eurasian and
international studies in Kazan, in a previous film, released after the
two-pronged attack, the same man announced an alliance with the Chechen rebel
leader, Doku Umarov.
The
Council of Muftis of Russia has condemned the attacks as particularly serious "terrorist
acts" because they occurred on the eve of Ramadan, the holy month for
Islam. The
spokesman for the Russian federal prosecutors, Vladimir Markin, said that
according to one of the tracks followed by the investigators, the two incidents
are linked and have to do with the activities of the spiritual leaders. Both
are known as moderate leaders in the fight against the spread of Wahhabism in
Tatarstan, which they considered as "a threat to traditional Islam."
Seven
people were arrested in relation to the attacks, while Mingaleyev is still
being sought. Some
local Muslim leaders have denounced the heavy hand of authority: last month there
were 160 raids by the police and from 400 to 600 Muslims questioned. (NA)
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13/01/2006
