Russia's Medvedev visits violence-hit Muslim region
MAKHACHKALA, Russia, June 9 (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Dagestan on Tuesday after the southern rebel region was hit by two high-profile assassinations over the past two weeks, the Kremlin said.
Medvedev called on the country's prosecutor general last Friday to personally take control of the investigation into the death of the region's interior minister, who died in hospital after being gunned down in the region's capital Makhachkala.
A source close to Medvedev said he would meet the region's President Mukhu Aliyev and Kremlin envoy in South Russia, Vladimir Ustinov.
Analysts say Moscow's fragile control over mainly Muslim regions in the south of Russia, including Dagestan, could be undermined by the sharp economic downturn which threatens generous subsidies handed out by the Kremlin.
On May 25 a senior Muslim cleric was shot dead in Makhachkala. Interfax news agency described him as a leading opponent of "religious extremism" among Muslims in the region.
One of the most populous regions in the north Caucasus, Dagestan borders Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars since the mid-1990s to crush Muslim separatists.
As security in Chechnya has improved, instability has worsened elsewhere in the region, where poverty and violence provide a fertile recruiting ground for Islamist militants and rebels. (Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Tatiana Ustinova; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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