Ingushetia violence

Officials said Ingush Construction Minister Ruslan Amerkhanov was shot dead in his office on Wednesday.

Russian news agencies are reporting that Amerkhanov was shot dead at point-blank range when a group of armed men burst into his office in Ingushetia's capital, Magas.

Muslim-dominated Inghushetia and other regions in Russia's northern Caucasus are battling Islamist militants who are waging a low-level but increasingly deadly insurgency against the pro-Kremlin local authorities.

Wednesday's killing was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks on top officials in the Caucasus republics.

Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov is currently recovering after being seriously wounded in a suicide bomb attack on his motorcade on June 22. The 46-year-old former paratrooper general was unconscious for many days and fighting for his life after suffering head injuries, burns and damage to internal organs when a car loaded with explosives wedged into his motorcade.

Pledge to fight rebels and corruption

Yevkurov made his first public appearance on Monday, pledging to step up the fight against rebels and corruption among his own officials.

Nominated for the job by the Kremlin last October, the Ingush president has said he believes it is not only militant Islamist propaganda but also widespread poverty aggravated by deep-rooted corruption that push many young people to join the rebels.

"If I could catch that suicide terrorist, I would have probably forgiven him," he told a Russian television network. "I have no intention to take revenge."

Yevkurov said that those who surrender would be prosecuted by the law but held out a stern warning to militants who do not lay down weapons and do not surrender. He said: “They will be destroyed - this is the law, this is not my whim, and everyone must understand that."

Human rights activists say that apart from poverty and corruption, the high-handed behaviour of officials is also pushing local residents to take up arms and join the insurgents.

Links to Chechnya

In neighboring Chechnya, which is ethnically and historically linked to Ingushetia, Russian troops have fought two wars against pro-independence rebels since the mid-1990s. Harsh methods used to crush opposition since then have subdued dissent but have been condemned by human rights groups.

Many in Ingushetia feared a surge in violence, especially after Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov vowed revenge for the June attack on Yevkurov.

However, Yevkurov has sought to dispel such fears. "Ramzan Kadyrov has no intention to command Ingushetia, just like Yevkurov has no plans to run Chechnya. It was our common decision (to fight the rebels together)," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

rb/AFP/Reuters

Editor: Chuck Penfold