Jemal: split in "Imarat Kavkaz" will help power agents in fighting Chechen militants

Split into Umarov's and Gakaev's groupings in Chechnya will complicate the work of Russian power agents in crushing the underground, since it broke the earlier clear hierarchy in the camp of the militants waging war on federal agencies, said Russian orientalist Alexei Malashenko. However, according to political scientist Orkhan Jemal, the split in "Imarat Kavkaz" will play into the hands of Russian power agencies in their fight against militants.

"This split, apart from objective reasons, was also somehow provoked by special services. It was not proved, but it all happened to quickly and too smoothly," Alexei Malashenko, a Russian orientalist and a member of the Scientific Board of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Our power agents are accustomed to act when there is a certain organization - you just catch its leader, and that's all. But when it is not clear who does what, when there is no rigid hierarchy, perhaps, it will be more difficult to counteract them," said Alexei Malashenko.

In his turn, Orkhan Jemal, a Russian political scientist and journalist, is confident that, on the opposite, the split in "Imarat Kavkaz" will simplify the task of Russian power agents to destroy the militants.

"Now, power agents will feel easier because of the split, since Umarov's tactics was as follows: focusing mainly not on the 'forest' but on the underground, which is very intensive in propaganda work, while the 'forest' supports the 'Robin-Good fellowship' by killing from time to time some PPS (patrol and post service) officer," Mr Jemal told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He also believes that at least in Chechnya power agents and militants "had existed in some parallel dimensions."

"They were waging a sort of verbal war; but in reality they had no serious clashes. While Gakaev's grouping is practicing the so-called 'socialist-revolutionary' methodology: strikes on the top, personal, not 'background', terror. In this sense, of course, for official authorities this enemy is more 'unpleasant' than others, than Dokku Umarov, because here personal threats appear," said Orkhan Jemal.

Nevertheless, as he noted, the split into two groupings may bring disorder into the work of the underground; and power agents may benefit from this.