MOSCOW — The assassination of the Russian-backed president of Chechnya on Sunday has left the Kremlin with few good options in pursuing a brutal and thankless war that has continued on and off for almost a decade.
The president, Akhmad Kadyrov, 52, was buried Monday in his home village in southeastern Chechnya just seven months after being elected in a stage-managed vote that was intended to demonstrate that the war had become a manageable, localized conflict.
As Moscow's surrogate, he had consolidated government functions and armed power, leaving the Kremlin with no obvious alternative. A new election is to be held by Sept. 9.
"The danger is that things could turn chaotic and you might see Chechnya being plunged into a new war or a war of personal feuds and retributions," said Dmitri Trenin, an expert on Chechnya with the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Although major combat had already ended when Kadyrov was elected in October, terrorist attacks have continued both in Chechnya and in other parts of Russia. Kadyrov was killed by a bomb that had been planted under the seats of the central stadium, where he was attending a World War II anniversary celebration in the capital, Grozny.
Since his election, the surface of life in Chechnya had become quieter with some roadblocks removed. But beneath this calm, Kadyrov's private army of 2,000 to 3,000 fighters was maintaining its grip through a campaign of kidnappings and terror, according to local residents and human rights groups.
Particularly worrying in the short run, said Tanya Lokshina, a human rights worker who was in Grozny on Sunday, is that Kadyrov's private army is now leaderless and more dangerous than ever.
The fighters, who include a number of rebel defectors, may now feel at risk and could stage a new wave of violence in an attempt to eliminate rivals, she said.
"Kadyrov's death has left a political vacuum in Chechnya," said Ramazan Abdulatipov, a Russian member of Parliament. "It turns out that there is no one to pick up his banner."
Some officials in Moscow called on President Vladimir V. Putin to take direct control of Chechnya, a move that some experts said could provoke more civil war.
Trenin of the Carnegie Endowment suggested that Putin might seek to put together a coalition leadership in Chechnya, although that would be difficult given the antagonisms among leading figures there.