Attacks on Islamic preachers shock Russia

The Islamic leader of Russia’s main Muslim region of Tatarstan was wounded Thursday and another preacher killed in rare attacks in an oil-rich republic often praised for its religious tolerance. The mufti of Tatarstan, Ildus Faizov, was wounded in a car explosion while his former deputy, Valiulla Yakupov, was shot dead in the strikes an hour apart as Muslims prepared to begin observing Ramadan at sundown. Investigators opened a murder case while the region’s leader linked the attacks in Tatarstain’s main city of Kazan to the preachers’ work to promote moderate Islam. “Our leaders have followed the policy of traditional Islam. It is clear that there are other movements, and what happened today is a clear challenge,” President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, said pledging a firm response to radicals. “Our position should be tougher,” he said in comments released by his office. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the twin attacks were a “serious signal.” “This is a serious signal,” Putin said in televised remarks at a meeting with parliament leaders. “On the whole, we were aware of what is happening in some Russian regions anyway. “But being aware is not enough. There is a need to understand the situation, analyse it and take timely decisions. Taking into account this tragic event, we can say that no pre-emptive steps had been taken.” “This once again reminds us of the fact that the situation in our country is far from ideal,” Putin said, adding that he ordered the head of the FSB security service to hunt down and punish those behind the twin attacks. Russia’s top Muslim preacher Ravil Gainutdin said that the perpetrators were seeking to place a bomb under the foundation of “peace and order of the entire Russian Federation.” “I have to admit that a wave of violence has come to the Volga region too.” The oil-producing region on the Volga River is touted by authorities as an example of peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians, in contrast to the troubled North Caucasus, where the Kremlin fought two wars against separatists in the past 20 years. But over the past few years officials have sounded the alarm about radical Islam spreading to a region where secessionist sentiments ran high following the Soviet breakup. Yakupov, 48, was shot on the porch of his apartment block and died from his wounds in his car. Faizov was wounded when his vehicle exploded in another part of the city, the Investigative Committee said. “The Toyota Land Cruiser with the Mufti of Tatarstan inside, Ildus Faizov, was blown up,” it said. “He was thrown out of the car by the force of the blast. He has been hospitalized with wounds of varying severity.” TV showed flames and smoke bursting out of Faizov’s black vehicle, which regional police said he was driving. Faizov, 49, has mounted a crackdown on extremists among the Muslim clergy of the republic of four million inhabitants. He has said the main threat comes from followers of radical forms of Islam, Salafism and Wahhabism, whose ideology is now preached in some of the mosques in Tatarstan. “The Salafists and Wahhabis constitute a very great danger. There are no moderates among them. They all finish one day by taking up arms,” Faizov said in an interview with AFP last year shortly after his election. Yakupov headed the education department of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of Tatarstan at the time of his death, but until recently was Faizov’s first deputy. In May, the Kazan Week website listed him as Tatarstan’s second most influential Muslim, calling him the “strategist behind Faizov’s policy of rooting out religious extremism.”