MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Russia's most wanted guerrilla Doku Umarov vowed to spread his attacks from the turbulent North Caucasus into the nation's heartland, defying Kremlin efforts to contain a growing Islamist insurgency.
"Blood will no longer be limited to our (Caucasus) cities and towns. The war is coming to their cities," the Chechen rebel leader said in an interview on the unofficial Islamist website kavkazcenter.com.
The ginger-bearded, 45-year-old Umarov calls himself the "Emir of the Caucasus Emirate". He aims to create an independent state under sharia law in the heavily Muslim North Caucasus, a swathe of southern Russia that includes Chechnya.
"If Russians think the war only happens on television, somewhere far away in the Caucasus where it can’t reach them, inshallah (God willing) we plan to show them that the war will return to their homes," he said in the interview posted on Sunday.
The Kremlin declined immediate comment.
Umarov, who has been wounded several times fighting Russian forces, is believed to be hiding in the mountains of Chechnya. The website showed Umarov in woodland in front of a large flag in Arabic script.
Violence is growing in the North Caucasus, especially in Chechnya, site of two separatist wars since the mid-1990s, Dagestan and Ingushetia. Late last year the Kremlin called the region Russia’s biggest domestic political problem.
Local leaders say poverty and unemployment fuel Islamist militancy, which overlaps with clan feuds and the activity of criminal groups.
Umarov’s group already claimed responsibility for a train bombing between Moscow and St Petersburg that killed 26 people last November, plus a suicide bomb attack in June which left the leader of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, fighting for his life, and an August Siberian dam disaster that killed 75.
But Russia has not returned to the paralysing fear of the early 2000s during the second Chechen war, when a series of attacks, including two large-scale hostage takings and bombs on the Moscow underground, unnerved the public and government.
