Ex-director of Ichkerian counter-intelligence now heads special unit of Kadyrov's security serviceRuslan Isayev, North Caucasus – Another special unit of Akhmad Kadyrov’s security service was recently created in Chechnya; and Ibragim Khultygov, former director of the National Security Service of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, was named as its head.
The new unit of over two hundred men will allegedly be based in the Vedensky district, solely to find and eliminate members of the Chechen resistance.
Khultgov’s older brother Lecha was director of the National Security Service, but in August 1998, two months after he was killed in an armed conflict with fighters controlled by Salman Raduyev, Ibragim Khultgov was appointed by Ichkerian President Aslan Maskhadov to replace him.
Many observers say that appointments like this - based on professional ignorance of the appointees - undermined Maskhadov's power and made many of his supporters to switch their allegiance to the other side.
Khultygov had no active role in either the first or second Chechen wars. Although he has no formal education, he held this post until the beginning of the second Chechen war when refusing to obey Maskhadov's orders, he left his post. In May 2000 and then again in August that same year Russians reported that Khultygov was arrested by their forces in his house in the village of Makhety in the Vedensky district.
After his release, Khultygov became a staunch supporter of the current Chechen leader Kadyrov. But his recent appointment did not go unnoticed by the rebels; recently his house in Makhety mysteriously burnt to the ground.
(M/E,T) |
