Ingushetia plays down violence despite shootings

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The leader of Russia's southern region of Ingushetia said on Thursday that media reports about worsening security in the area were exaggerated and vowed that rebels will shortly be destroyed.

Violence has this summer gripped Ingushetia, which neighbors Chechnya, where two wars between rebels and Russian soldiers since 1994 have scarred the north Caucasus.

Now barely a day passes without a shooting, rebel attack, murder or abduction in Ingushetia which, like Chechnya, is poor and predominantly Muslim.

But at a news briefing in Moscow, Ingush President Marat Zyazikov said it was just a matter of time before the rebels -- a mixture of separatists, Islamic radicals and the desperate -- were defeated.

"Ingushetia will remain part of Russia and everything will be fine," he said.

Earlier this summer Moscow tripled the number of soldiers in Ingushetia, a move Zyazikov maintained was procedural.

He accused the media of bad reporting which had upped tension around the republic and presented an impression of a state of emergency.

"This plays right into the hands of Russia's enemies and some forces that exist in Moscow -- the opposition," he said. The sharp-suited Zyazikov is a known loyalist of Russian President Vladimir Putin and, like Putin, a former KGB agent.

But just two hours after Zyazikov finished his news briefing gunmen shot dead two soldiers in central Nazran, the main Ingush city, an interior ministry spokesman said. Every day this week gunmen have killed policemen in the region.

On Wednesday in Nazran around 500 people demonstrated against what they say are arbitrary night arrests by security forces -- a rare show of public anger in the north Caucasus.

Unknown assassins have also started murdering foreigners in what has been described as a push to drive out returning Russians.

Zyazikov also used the news briefing on Thursday to turn down an offer of help from Ramzan Kadyrov, the former rebel turned Kremlin loyalist who is leader of Chechnya.

"Relations are normal, I would even say brotherly, but no more," he said.