VZCZCXRO3400
RR RUEHLN RUEHPOD RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHMO #3137 2981309
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 241309Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0509
INFO RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS MOSCOW 003137 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR PRM/ECA AND EUR/RUS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O.  12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PGOV PTER EAID RS
SUBJECT: HUMANITARIANS WARY AS VIOLENCE SPREADS TO NORTH OSSETIA 
 
REF:  Moscow 3089 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Unknown attackers blew up a local official's car 
in front of a downtown hotel in the relative safe haven of 
Vladikavkaz.  Expatriate humanitarians living and working in North 
Ossetia and its neighboring republics acknowledge a generally 
deteriorating regional security situation with no improvement in 
sight.  The alternatives for the Russian Government - a harsh 
security crackdown or fresh political initiative that could upset 
the status quo local bureaucracy - are unpalatable to Moscow.  End 
Summary. 
 
Havoc on the High Street 
------------------------ 
 
¶2. (U) Russian press reported October 22 on the bombing of a car 
belonging to the first deputy mayor of the North Ossetian capital 
city Vladikavkaz.  The official, Mairam Tamayev, was hospitalized in 
grave condition or only with a slight leg injury, depending on the 
account.  An Itar-Tass police source reported an explosive yield of 
200-300 grams of TNT. Police investigators have not yet identified a 
perpetrator. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The most striking element of the crime was where it took 
place:  in front of the Hotel Vladikavkaz, the city's faded 
Brezhnevian former Intourist hotel.  Along with the Imperial, this 
is one of only two hotels in North Ossetia that the UN Department of 
Safety and Security in the Russian Federation has cleared for 
official use.  (Note:  UNDSS has not cleared any hotels in 
Ingushetia, Chechnya, or Dagestan.  End note.)  It is a 20-minute 
walk from World Vision Russia's team house and even closer to some 
UNHCR expatriate staff housing.  An attack in such a prominent 
location thus suggests that the region's insurgents and criminal 
elements have been emboldened by recent successful assaults on 
authorities in neighboring Ingushetia (reftel). 
 
¶4. (SBU) In a meeting with Refcoord and ACS Chief October 21, 
Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) officials said escalating violence in 
the region is of great concern to them.  MSF-Holland has three 
offices in the North Caucasus - in Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria), 
Nazran (Ingushetia), and Groznyy (Chechnya).  Head of Mission Willem 
de Jonge, a Dutch citizen, observed that the threat posed by Muslim 
extremists seems to be growing across the region, with Ingushetia in 
particular "spiraling out of control."  Jonge was particularly 
concerned with the emergence of suicide attacks.  Although such 
attacks have thus far been few, they are worrying simply because 
they are not a typically Caucasian form of political violence. 
 
¶5. (SBU) International Rescue Committee Russia Country Director 
Thomas Hill speculated October 20 that Caucasus insurgents are 
"almost close enough in boots, guns, and funding to launch 
full-scale [assaults] if they wanted to" but will probably be 
content simply to take a break over the winter while, as in previous 
years, continuing to stockpile resources and instill fear among the 
population, thus weakening the local government. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Not everyone gives the rebels so much credit for being the 
masters of their own fate.  Jo Hegenauer, outgoing UNHCR Vladikavkaz 
Head of Office, told us October 21 that the October 18 attack 
against FSB troops in Ingushetia (reftel) was not really 
extraordinary and that the Russian military could effectively crack 
down whenever it wished.  Hegenauer, who has just completed three 
and a half years in the North Caucasus, said he thought most of the 
region's true radicals had already been killed or were in exile 
abroad, from where it is much easier to propagandize about a rising 
Islam-inspired Caucasus Emirate (e.g., on the jihadist "Kavkaz 
Center" website). 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) For Hegenauer's analysis to be correct the Russian 
Government would have to be willing to commit itself to use of force 
on a scale that would draw domestic and, even more so, international 
condemnation.  What we and our humanitarian colleagues can 
anticipate instead is chronic political and organized criminal 
violence barely kept in check by federal forces and sometimes 
uncomfortably close to "home."  The alternative, a political fix, 
would require acknowledging the base of protestors and 
disenfranchised, replacing corrupt local officials, supporting 
regional clan and religious leaders, and providing -- and protecting 
from graft - substantial funding for livelihoods that provide a 
meaningful alternative to perpetual militancy. 
 
BEYRLE