Moscow, 7 July: Experts link the growing number of terrorist acts in Dagestan of late to a crisis of power in the republic, social problems and radical extremists' activities.

"A whole number of factors are contributing to the growing number of terrorist acts and attacks on law-enforcers. Above all, there is a total crisis of power in Dagestan, as well as an obvious problem of preserving the power elite and ethnic problems," Aleksey Malashenko, a member of the science council of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, told Interfax on Thursday (7 July).

"The head of the State Council of Dagestan is a Dargin, the chairman of government is a Kumyk and the head of parliament is an Avar. There is a view that the Avars believe that the Dargins have been occupying the supreme post in the republic for too long," the political analyst said.

"Also, there is a huge gap between the authorities and society in Dagestan. The republic has terrible unemployment, not to mention corruption," Malashenko said.

Besides, he added, "Islamic opposition is operating in Dagestan, and criminal structures often use Islamic slogans". In his opinion, extremist Islamic groups operating in the republic and proximity to Chechnya are influencing the situation in Dagestan.

"The number of Islamists in Dagestan has gone up. If in the past there were two or three jamaats (Islamic communities), now there are more than 10 of them. Besides, there is a popular view that most of rebels fighting in Chechen mountains are not Chechens but Dagestanis," Malashenko said.

"To change the situation in Dagestan the federal centre should revise its policy in the North Caucasus as a whole. Something has to be changed," he said.

Another expert, the president of the Institute of Geopolitical Information, Valeriy Manilov, believes that the growing number of terrorist acts in Dagestan is a result of outside factors as well as the inefficiency of the local law-enforcement agencies.

"The problem is of a complex nature and, above all, is a result of the inefficient work for quite a long time of the republic's law-enforcement agencies and the absence of a system for finding terrorist links," Manilov, who was first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff until 2001, said.

According to him, increased activities of extremist groups in Dagestan are connected among other things with the success of the special operations against rebel leaders in Chechnya.

"The increasing efficiency of the work of the agencies taking part in the counterterrorist operation in Chechnya, both army and special operations, and elimination of the ringleaders of bandit formations have forced the remaining terrorists to move outside the Chechen Republic," the expert said.

According to him, in order to reduce terrorist activities in Dagestan one should "eliminate the channels of financial and information support that are coming from the outside".

"A radical perestroika has already taken place in the North Caucasus security system, now it needs to be implemented in practice, so the gap between the word and the deed is removed," Manilov said.