GROZNY. Dec 8 (Interfax-AVN) - Extending the fight against terrorists and guerrilla groups from Chechnya to other North Caucasus districts will help restore stability in the region, Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov told Interfax on Wednesday.
Residents of North Caucasus regions neighboring Chechnya, CIS countries and non-CIS nations account for a large number of militants active in Chechnya, Dzhabrailov said.
People who "represent international terrorism" are responsible for most terrorist attacks and other crimes committed in Chechnya and other regions, he said.
"They have access to the most advanced weapons and face no shortage of explosives. They have used tonnes of explosives on a number of occasions, but the country's population has never been told about any sources from which these explosives have arrived, because Chechnya does not produce explosives," he said.
"I cannot comment on any direct or indirect, moral or legal liability of law enforcement agencies in North Caucasus regions," Dzhabrailov said.
For a long period of time, some regions neighboring Chechnya did not want to pay attention to statements made by senior Chechen officials that terrorists had made their "nests" in Ingushetia and other regions of Russia, he said.
Although this problem was hushed up in these regions, it did not cease to exist, which was demonstrated by events in Ingushetia and the North Ossetian town of Beslan, the official said.
A ten-year-old resolution signed by Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin to counter illegal armed units in Chechnya and the zone of Ossetian-Ingush conflict has not helped restore peace and stability in the region, Dzhabrailov said.
"By trying to use the army to bring order to their own house," Russia's former leaders authorities lost a certain amount of influence on "other regions of the world, including zones of their strategic interests," the official said.
"After suffering numerous casualties, destroying Grozny and spending billions of rubles on the war, the former Russian authorities did not manage to make the first Chechen campaign proceed along so-called constitutional lines. Moreover, the republic became a hotbed of tension and a hideout for criminals, mercenaries and religious extremists, Wahhabi followers and abductors," he said.
Not only did the country's authorities fail to meet their objectives outlined in their program for the revival of the Chechen economy, but the republic's economy was almost ruined, Dzhabrailov said.
"The federal target program that is being carried out in the Chechen republic today effectively repeats the 1995-96 events there," he said.
"Sixty-eight billion rubles ($2.43 billion) are reported to have been invested, but nobody has seen the result of these investments," Dzhabrailov said.