BBC: Human rights activists and opposition politicians in Russia's southern republic of Ingushetia have told the BBC that the predominantly Muslim region is now in a state of civil war.
It is reported that more than 800 people have been killed in an escalating conflict which originally spilt over from neighbouring Chechnya six years ago.
Ingushetia is a tiny region with a total population of just 300,000.
"A lot of my human rights colleagues and politicians say it is now a civil war and I agree with that," Magomed Mutsolgov, director of the Ingush Human Rights organisation Mashr, says.
"In my opinion it is a war between the security forces and the local population. Many members of the security forces consider themselves above the law and the population outside the law," he adds.
A low-level insurgency involving Muslim fighters escalated dramatically last year with a surge of attacks on the security forces and also on people who have moved into the region from other parts of Russia.
"From July or August last year there have been three or four attacks every week," Tanya Lokshina, of Human Rights Watch, says. She recently compiled a major report on Ingushetia.
"There are a few hundred insurgents in total… who are Jihadists fighting to establish a Caliphate in the (Caucasus) region." >>> By Richard Galpin, BBC News, Moscow | November 23, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>
