Chechnya Suicide Attack Sparks Fears of Fresh Violence

A suicide bombing that killed five policemen in Chechnya is a stark reminder of the Islamist insurgency spreading in the North Caucasus and the threat posed by jihadists who have joined the Islamic State group, analysts say.

"The number of shootings and deaths has dropped but the situation remains far from stable," said Grigory Shvedov, editor of the website kavkaz-uzel.ru that focuses on the Caucasus.

"It is possible that suicide attacks have gone down because the new leadership of the Caucasus Emirate does not want to use them and not because the security forces have been working more effectively," Shvedov told AFP.

The Caucasus Emirate is a group created in 2007 that aims to establish an Islamist state in the region and has called for global jihad.

Five policemen were killed and 12 injured in the Chechen capital Grozny on Sunday when authorities said they blocked a 19-year-old suicide bomber from attacking a concert hall where thousands had gathered to mark a local holiday.

The blast, which shattered a period of relative calm in the region, has sparked concerns of a new cycle of violence in the North Caucasus where the Kremlin fought two wars with separatists over the past 20 years.

These fears are further fueled by worries over what impact fighters from the region who have flooded to Syria and Iraq to battle alongside radical groups such as Islamic State (IS) will have when they return home.

"There is a basis to suggest that a link exists between the Caucasus Emirate and IS and that it could grow stronger," Shvedov said.

Chechnya's Kremlin-backed President Ramzan Kadyrov has previously claimed that the Islamist insurgency has almost been crushed and his boasts were bolstered by the admission from rebels in March that their veteran leader Doku Umarov had been killed.

The Moscow-backed strongman at the weekend rushed to offer assurances that the situation remained under control despite the latest attack.

"What has happened has not impacted the situation in Chechnya. It remains stable and entirely under the control of security forces," Kadyrov wrote on his Instagram site following the attack.

But analysts said security in Chechnya is still extremely fragile despite the veneer of relative calm in the region of late.

The Islamist movement emerged from the remnants of the independence struggle in the wake of Chechnya's two separatist wars, with fighting increasingly focusing on the neighboring regions of Ingushetia and Dagestan.

The latest attack in Chechnya was followed Monday by an announcement from officials in Dagestan that two security operatives and eight rebels have been killed in clashes there over the past week.

The Islamist insurgency -- responsible for a string of spectacular attacks in Russia, including a spate of blasts ahead of the February Olympic Games in Sochi -- has struggled of late to carry out attacks on security forces in Chechnya.

"The security forces have suffered fewer and fewer losses at the hands of the rebels," said Alexander Cherkasov, chairman of Russia's leading human rights group Memorial.

The drop in rebel activity can be explained in part by the flow of fighters from the North Caucasus to take part in conflicts raging abroad, especially in the ranks of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group battling in Syria and Iraq, Cherkasov said.

There are no precise figures, but the Central Intelligence Agency says IS militants in Iraq and Syria now have about 20,000 to 31,500 fighters on the ground.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says IS actually has more than 50,000 fighters in Syria alone, including 20,000 jihadists from Chechnya, Europe, China and Gulf Arab countries.

Islamic State militants last month issued a threat to President Vladimir Putin, vowing to oust him and "liberate" the volatile North Caucasus over his support of the Syrian regime.

While it was too early to establish a link between Sunday's attack in Chechnya and the promised violence by the Sunni militants the future return of radicalized fighters from abroad could prove a major security headache for Moscow.

"Thousands (of fighters) could come back to Russia from the Middle East. This is a potential future threat," Cherkasov said.

And in a sign that the influence of Syria might already be being felt in the North Caucasus, authorities told the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency that one of the rebel fighters killed in recent days in Dagestan had received explosives training in Syria.