NAZRAN, November 12 (RIA Novosti) – The authorities of Ingushetia have persuaded 46 militants and their accomplices to turn themselves in to law enforcement officers over the past 18 months, Akhmed Kotiyev, the secretary of the Russian North Caucasus republic’s security council, said on Monday.
Kotiyev told RIA Novosti by phone that this was the result of work by a special commission which assists former militants to start a new life.
Ingushetia’s President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in October set up a hotline to talk to militants who decide to return to a peaceful life.
Over a decade after the end of a war against Islamist separatists in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, Russian security forces continue to fight militants across the volatile region.
The Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to Chechnya, has spread in recent years across the North Caucasus. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are also reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria.