The Republic of Ingushetia Security Council unconditionally rejected claims by officials in neighboring Chechnya that Doku Umarov has returned to the Caucasus after getting medical treatment in Turkey and may be hiding in the mountainous Jeyrakh district of southern Ingushetia."No, no, certainly not!"
Top Ingush security officials insisted that Jeyrakh is "completely stable," and that the entire district is "under intensified surveillance."
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A Chechen source in the Federal Security service (FSB) had claimed on June 27 that Umarov was injured in March when his group came under attack in Ingushetia's Sunzha district. Umarov then travelled in April to Turkey, according to the source, where he spent a month receiving medical care, including treatment for frostbitten feet.
Umarov returned to Russia "several weeks ago" and convened a meeting of his top commanders in Jeyrakh, which borders on Georgia, the FSB source went on. He said Umarov "may" still be in Jeyrakh, or in the forested uplands on the border between Sunzha and the neighboring Chechen district of Achkhoi-Martan.
The FSB official claimed to have intelligence indicating that Umarov's jihadis are planning a series of high-profile terrorist attacks in Stavropol Krai and Astrakhan Oblast soon.
They're always planning high profile terrorist attacks...
This account of Umarov's travels since late March fails to convince on several counts. First, Umarov telephoned RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service on April 7 and rejected as false persistent Russian media reports that he was either dead or terminally ill.
Second, on May 12, when Umarov was purportedly still hospitalized in Turkey, his official website reported that he was in Chechnya, and had convened a meeting "a little over a week ago" with several Chechen local commanders.
At the same time, Umarov has not delivered on the veiled threat he made during his phone call to RFE/RL that "they [presumably meaning the Russian authorities] will be hearing from me soon."
A planned suicide attack in Grozny in late April by two young fighters tied to Umarov was averted by a counter-terror operation in which the two men reportedly blew themselves up after running out of ammunition.
The failure to launch follow-up operations over the ensuing two months leaves doubts about the resources and personnel at Umarov's disposal, although he himself declared in an interview that "we are not in any hurry."
By contrast, the Chechen jihadis who split with Umarov last summer have staged as many as 15 attacks on pro-Moscow Chechen forces since May 1 (one every five-six days on average), in which up to 14 pro-Moscow police and security personnel have been killed and 49 wounded. All but three of those attacks were in the south or south-west, the theater of operations of veteran leader Tarhan Gaziev.