During and after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the North Caucasus area of Russia experienced substantial disorder. Among such disorder, breakaway conflicts in neighboring Georgia rallied some North Caucasians to support their efforts; Chechen separatism gained ground, contributing to the breakup of the then-Chechen-Ingush Republic along ethnic lines; and ethnic Ingush clashed with ethnic North Ossetians over disputed territory. Russia's then-President Boris Yeltsin implemented a federal system that permitted substantial regional autonomy over governance and taxes. While most North Caucasus republics agreed to remain as parts of Russia, Chechnya was at the forefront in demanding independence. In 1994-1996, Russia fought against Chechen separatists in a bloody campaign that led to thousands of Russian and Chechen casualties and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, but ceasefire accords in 1996 resulted in de facto self-rule in Chechnya. Organized crime and Islamic extremism subsequently greatly increased in Chechnya and spilled out into bordering and other areas of Russia, including the alleged bombing of apartment buildings in Moscow and elsewhere in 1999 by Chechen terrorists. Ostensibly in response to the rising cross-border violence, Russia's then-Premier Putin ordered military, police, and security forces to reenter Chechnya in late 1999. By early 2000, these forces occupied most of the region, resulting again in large numbers of civilian casualties and displaced persons. Over the next few years, government security forces acted extremely aggressively to tamp down the range and scope of the insurgency by aggressively carrying out over a thousand counter-terrorism operations (termed "zachistki" or "cleaning-up" operations) in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus. During these operations, security forces surround a village and search the homes of the residents, ostensibly in a bid to apprehend terrorists. Critics of the operations allege that the searches are illegal and that troops frequently engage in pillaging and gratuitous violence and are responsible for kidnapping for ransom and "disappearances" of civilians. Through these sweeps, as well as through thousands of direct clashes, most of the masterminds of previous large-scale terrorist attacks were killed and such attacks became rarer, although they did not cease completely. In September 2004, terrorists attacked the Beslan grade school in North Ossetia, where 300 or more civilians, police, and troops were killed, and in October 2005, terrorists attacked the town of Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria, where 50 or more were killed. Although local Islamic extremist insurgents outside of Chechnya had cooperated to some degree with the Chechen insurgents for several years, in May 2005, then-Chechen rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Saydullayev decreed the formation of a Caucasus Front against Russia among Islamic believers in the North Caucasus. The goal of the front was to enhance Chechen ideological, logistical, and financial support for wider hostilities. In October 2007, his successor, Doku Umarev, declared a Caucasus Emirate embracing the North Caucasus and other Muslim areas of Russia. Terrorist attacks in Russia's North Caucasus area appeared to greatly increase in numbers since 2007, according to many observers. Moreover, civilian and government casualties reached levels not seen in several years and large-scale terrorist attacks again took place outside the North Caucasus. Although the number of terrorist incidents may have leveled off or even declined slightly in 2010 in Chechnya and Ingushetia from the high levels of 2009 (see below), civilian and government casualties continue to increase throughout the North Caucasus and a rising number of terrorist incidents take place outside of Chechnya. Illustrative of the new level of violence, suicide bombings took place in Moscow on March 29, 2010—the first since 2004—resulting in over 40 deaths and dozens of injuries. The rise in terrorist attacks in the late 2000s has been met by an increase in zachistki and in reported human rights abuses linked to security forces, such as abductions for ransom or "disappearances." In Chechnya, leader Ramzan Kadyrev has advocated holding families responsible for the terrorist actions of their relatives, and local security forces allegedly have tortured family members or burned their houses. The increased conflict also has placed human rights and aid workers in renewed jeopardy. Some observers suggest that the increasing scope of public discontent against zachistki and deep economic and social distress are contributing to growing numbers of recruits for terrorist groups and to increasing violence in the North Caucasus. Interethnic and religious tensions are also responsible for some of the increasing violence. The violence in the North Caucasus has spurred migration from the North Caucasus of some of the native population and most of the nonnative population. Unlike in most other federal subunits of Russia, eponymous or other native ethnic groups have strengthened their majority status in all the North Caucasian republics except in Adygea, and even there, ethnic Russians are declining as a percentage of the population. According to some reports, few ethnic Russians reportedly remain as residents in Chechnya and Ingushetia, except for military personnel. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private research organization, has suggested that the incidence of jihadist-related violence started to increase in the North Caucasus in 2007 and that such violence greatly increased in 2008-2009. Data for 2010 compiled by CSIS and by the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program, an endeavor of the private Monterey Institute of Middlebury College, also appear to indicate a substantial but slightly slowing rate of increase of terrorist incidents in the North Caucasus in 2010. According to data compiled by the U.S. government Open Source Center, there were 1,082 violent incidents in January through November 2010, compared to 1,382 in 2009. These data may suggest that the number of violent incidents peaked in 2009 and may have evened off or be slightly lower when complete data are compiled for 2010. However, the Open Source Center data also suggest that the injuries and deaths suffered by local officials and civilians increased in 2010 compared to 2009, and that the numbers of security personnel injured or killed declined, perhaps indicating that mujahidin are increasingly targeting civilians. Recent statements from the Caucasus Emirate seem to set forth a strategy of targeting civilians. Analyst Mairbek Vatchagaev has stated that "the militants seem to have taken the idea that there is a 'peaceful civilian population' off their agenda and this attests to the radicalization of the Islamist movement in the North Caucasus…. Apparently, the radical forces that insist on waging total war throughout Russia have gained the upper hand." All three data sources mentioned above appear to indicate that the incidence of violent incidents continues to broaden beyond Chechnya. According to the Open Source Center data, violent incidents in Chechnya and Ingushetia declined substantially in 2010 from the previous year, from 452 in 2009 in Chechnya to 241 in the first eleven months of 2010, and from 436 in Ingushetia in 2009 to 248 in 2010. However, this data source also reports that the number of violent incidents substantially increased in 2010 over the previous year in Dagestan, Kabarda-Balkaria, and Stavropol Territory, from 384 in Dagestan in 2009 to 412 in 2010; from 70 in Kabarda-Balkaria in 2009 to 147 in 2010; and from 6 in Stavropol Territory in 2009 to 11 in 2010. All three data sources rely on media reports and may be influenced by censorship in the North Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya. The validity of the Russian government's own data was questioned by President Medvedev at a meeting of police, security, and political officials in the North Caucasus Federal District on November 19, 2010. He mentioned that crime had increased in the North Caucasus and that crime-solving rates had declined, but retorted that "let me make this clear to the heads of our law-enforcement agencies: we cannot believe the statistics because they are often nonsense." While he reported that several dozen terrorism-related crimes had been prevented (such as by defusing improvised explosive devices) and that many "bandits" had been "neutralized" during 15 combat operations per day and over one zachistka per week in 2010 in the District, he stressed that there had been "little improvement" in halting "the number of shootings, explosions, [and] murders of civilians, religious leaders and law enforcement personnel" by terrorists. Responding to Medvedev, Aleksandr Bortnikov, the Director of the FSB, appeared to challenge Medvedev by asserting that terrorist activity in the District had declined in 2010. However, he agreed with Medvedev that the situation remained "complicated," and that it "requires additional measures, not only security and preventive measures, but also steps to stimulate the regions economy, invigorate the job market and bring down unemployment." Even though the counter-terrorist operations regime in Chechnya was formally lifted in early 2009, dozens of zachistki against alleged terrorists have continued to be carried out or have even increased in the republic as well as elsewhere in the North Caucasus, involving the declaration of counter-terrorist operations areas in villages and rural areas where civil rights are curtailed. Among prominent recent terrorist incidents: Dagestani Internal Affairs Minister Adilgerey Magomedtagirov was killed on June 5, 2009. Partly in response to this murder, President Medvedev flew to Dagestan and convened a session of the Russian Security Council to discuss regional counter-measures against terrorism.