The Rise of Islamic State in the North Caucasus: Co-opting a Global
Movement or Revolutionary Pragmatism?
MA Thesis in European Studies Graduate School for Humanities
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Author: Colm Fitzpatrick Student No: 11104503 Main Supervisor: Prof. Michael Kemper Second Supervisor: Dr. Erik Van Ree
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 1
Chapter I – Salafism in the Post-Soviet North Caucasus ... 4
Dagestan ... 5
Chechnya and Ingushetia ... 8
Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia ... 9
The First War ... 11
The Second War ... 14
Chapter II: Towards a Global Doctrine ... 18
Radicalising the “Moderates” ... 18
Imarat Kavkaz ... 25
Sochi and the Counter-Insurgency ... 34
Chapter III - Syria and the Demise of the Caucasus Emirate ... 38
North Caucasians in Syria ... 38
Why Islamic State? ... 41
What next for the Nomadic North Caucasians? ... 44
Conclusion ... 46
Bibliography ... 48
Introduction
On 20 December 2014, a video was posted to YouTube in which Rustam Asilderov and Arsanali Kambulatov, two leading members of the Dagestani Vilayat of the regional militant group the Caucasus Emirate (CE) declared a bayat (oath) to the leader of the Islamic State (IS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.1 On the surface, the departure of these two figures from the ever weakening Caucasus Emirate represented a dramatic shift in the direction of the group. Although the CE espoused a similar world view to that of the IS, the decision of the Dagestani duo to pledge allegiance to a foreign head of state finally confirmed the capitulation of the local agenda of the Islamist militants of the North Caucasus in favour of alignment with a global revolutionary movement pollinating from Syria and Iraq. In reality this action was far from surprising. Since the outbreak of civil war in Syria, North Caucasian militants have flocked to fight for the myriad of Islamist militias and armies in situ, eschewing the domestic jihad for which the CE embodied. Their presence in the Levant has considerably bolstered the military prowess of the factions for whom they fight and in some instances lead. Islamic State is no exception to this. Until his death in March 2016, Tarkhan Batirashvili (better known as Omar al-Shishani), an ethnic Chechen from the Pankisi Valley in Georgia, was a senior commander in IS. His presence acted as a lightning rod for new recruits from the Russian speaking world, particularly for those fleeing persecution in the North Caucasus.
Many combatants and prospective warriors have left the Russian Federation for Syria, ultimately crippling the recruitment capacity of the CE. This is in part due to the considerably successful counterinsurgency embarked upon by the Russian authorities over the past decade The paramount nature of security for the 2014 Sochi Olympics resulted in a heavy crackdown of any possible miscreants and malcontents in the region. The law enforcement has since made a concerted effort to remove the head of the snake as soon as it slithers out from its brumation. The death of the first Emir of the CE, Dokku Umarov, in late 2013 considerably affected the militant group’s already waning organisation. His successor, Aliaskhab Kebekov
1 Vatchagaev, Mairbek, ‘The Islamic State Is Set to Replace the Caucasus Emirate in the North Caucasus’, The
Jamestown Foundation, (8 January 2015) -
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=43246&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid% 5D=786&no_cache=1#.V8Zr4JN968o - Consulted 8 July 2015
did not command the same authority as Umarov. His moderate stance on civilian casualties did not sit well with the more hard-line elements in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. The assassination of both Kebekov and his successor, Magomed Suleimanov, in the spring and summer of 2015 brought the CE to it’s knees.2 In June of 2015, the Islamic State announced the establishment of the governorate in the North Caucasus, effectively usurping the mantel of the CE and confirming that the militancy of the region is now but a minor theatre in a larger war.3
Of course the argument could be made that the since adoption of the militant Salafist ideology, the insurgency in the North Caucasus has always been but a small fish in a big pond. The CE itself espoused a fairly analogous philosophy as IS does now. The inauguration of the Caucasus Emirate was a result of the gradual inclination towards Salafi teachings amongst a minority of the Islamic communities of the North Caucasus over several decades. Salafism offered a rejection of modern society, a revolutionary ideology that saw both Communism and market economy Capitalism as being ill conceived for human consumption. For Russia, perestroika did not solely open the gates for sedition and irredentism, it also provided greater access to the teachings of the Quran and investment from the Gulf states which bolstered a burgeoning religious revival.
The impact of the two wars fought for the soul of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s was consequential. Animosity towards the Salafi communities had already long existed, before the authorities began to harshly crack down on their proselytising activities. Moderate and influential ideologues who once shunned any notions of jihad like Yasin Rasulov and Anzor Astemirov became heavily ingrained in the development of militant Salafism in a backlash against state sponsored brutality. These “renovationist” characters held great sway over their youthful compatriots and their participation in both the struggle for Chechnya and later the Caucasus Emirate enhanced recruitment and gave theological legitimacy to the cause.4
2 Jocelyn, Thomas, ‘New Leader of Islamic Caucasus Emirate Killed by Russian Forces’, The Long War
Journal, (11 August, 2015) - http://www.longwarjournal.org/archive/2015/08/new-leader-of-islamic-caucasus-emirate-killed-by-russian-forces.php - Consulted September 15, 2016.
3 Gambhir, Harleen, ‘ISIS Declares Governorate in Russia’s North Caucasus Region, Institute for the Study of
War, (June 23, 2015) – http://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/isisdeclaresgovernoraterussia’snorth -caucasus-region– Consulted September 15, 2016.
4 Kurbanov, Ruslan, ‘‘Urban’ and ‘Rural’ Islam in the Caucasus: Modernisation versus Conservation’, Religion,
There is an argument that external investment and the participation of the foreign fighters in the defence of Chechnya is primarily responsible for the delineation from nationalist interests in the region since the early 2000s. This paper will not be arguing such a position. The purpose of this paper is to outline why the global reactionary ideology that the Islamic State embodies has found a particularly potent following in the Northern Caucasus in recent years, much to the detriment of the regionalist movement it has supplanted. It will trace the development of Salafism in the chief republics linked to the violent insurrection against the Russian state and her allies. The diatribe that will be advanced positions the adoption of the IS ideology by Asilderov and his cohorts as both revolutionary pragmatism and co-opting a global movement. The structure and resources of the Caucasus Emirate in the face of an adversary of considerable strength and unnerving ruthlessness meant that it was always going to be ill equipped to fight the long fight. The Islamic State boasts a command of the strategy of propaganda heretofore never seen nor exploited to such an extent. North Caucasians are at the heart of this organisation and therefore it was inevitable that the flag of the IS would fly above Dagestan and Chechnya someday.
Chapter I – Salafism in the Post-Soviet North Caucasus
The simplistic view of the development of Salafism and the parallel adoption of the notions of jihad in the North Caucasus has too often predominantly been attributed to the investment of Gulf State actors and organisations in the troubled region. While the foreign investment into both education and the construction of religious institutions was significant in the process of indoctrination, a certain respect must be afforded to the local actors who promoted this fundamentalist understanding of Islam against the social norms of Caucasian Sufism. The flourishing of Salafism in the North Caucasus owes much to the reform movement of Mikhail Gorbachev known as perestroika. From the late 1980s, Gorbachev attempted to preserve the unity of the Soviet Union in the face of growing nationalist tensions. Perestroika was largely a process of economic reform. However, although Gorbachev abhorred the notion of organised religion, he saw the necessity of removing the hindrance on some expressions of religious reverence in order to foster support for his attempted restructuring of the economy.5
Due to the extreme anti-religious nature of the Soviet Union since its inception, the relaxing of religious restrictions led to a revival of Islamic teachings. This theological renaissance, coupled with a more outward looking Soviet Union afforded Islamic communities greater contact with the Islamic world, which in turn led to an ever increasing flow of finances and missionaries from the Gulf states, Turkey and Pakistan.6 With the danger of persecution significantly decreased and the coffers bountiful, the construction of new mosques and the dispersion of Islamic centres of education served to further enhance the increasing religiosity of many communities.7 Although perestroika was intended to save the Soviet Union from dissolution, the reality of Gorbachev’s reformist policies was that they exponentially increased the demand for such a dissolution as the various republics and regions were facilitated in expressing their inherent cultural differences from the central state. For the North Caucasus perestroika opened the borders for its citizens to make contact with other Muslim communities around the world. For many this offered the true realisation that although they were denizens of the Soviet Union, they belonged to the global Islamic umma.
5 Hunter, Shireen T., Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security, (New York, 2004), p. 38. 6 IBID, p. 39.
7 Campana, Aurélie, Clivages Générationnels et Dynamiques Nationalistes. La Radicalisation des Mouvements
Nationalistes Tchéchènes et Ingouches, Revue internationale de politique comparée, Vol.16, No. 2, (2009) p. 268.
Increasing participation in the hajj led to greater contact between the umma which in turn facilitated the study of Islam in theological institutions and universities in the Middle East. The Salafist ideology was advanced by missionaries and Islamic charities that began to operate in the region, such as Al Haramein, the International Islamic Salvation Organisation, Islamic Relief and the Islamic Benevolence Foundation.8
As a result of these developments many young North Caucasians improved their understanding of Islam from the perspectives of a global interpretation. Contact with the outer world afforded the youth of the region the opportunity to advance their knowledge beyond that of their forebears. In a period of tumult and reformation, it is understandable that alternative ideas were endorsed.
Dagestan
The collapse of the Soviet Union created an existential crisis for many. Both communism and western notions of democracy were perceived to be ill equipped to solve the social problems deeply ingrained in North Caucasian society. Salafism offered a highly revolutionary perspective. Crucial to the attraction of Salafism to many of the downtrodden was its overt promotion of equality and social justice. The fall of the Soviet Union had confirmed the inadequacy of communism. The implementation of a market economy saw widespread corruption of the ruling elite, further disillusioning the general populace. Salafism offered a doctrine that not only promoted equality but also ignored the traditional hierarchical structures of Caucasian society. Membership of a particular clan or indeed ethnic identity was of little concern to the Salafists. In a multi-ethnic republic like Dagestan, Salafism promoted a certain ideal of unity in a time of utter discord. The unity of the umma was paramount. Furthermore, younger imams who had benefitted from studying in the Middle East offered a perceived legitimate interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence. They were able to boast fluency in Arabic and thus could curate theological debates about the state of society and advance the eminency of Salafism as a solution, whereas many of their Sufi peers lacked the same
8 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the Global
acumen in both linguistic and metaphysical terms.9 In a secular world, such theological stewardship is of little consequence in the grand scheme of who holds the greatest scriptural perspicacity. However, for communities bound by religiosity as in Dagestan and much of the greater Northern Caucasus, receiving one’s education from the original heartland of the central dogma inherently bolsters one’s influence and authority.
There is some debate over the existence of Salafism in the North Caucasus prior to the dawn of perestroika. Rich & Conduit state that the arrival of jihadist foreign fighters into Chechnya in the mid 1990s “introduced a foreign Salafist framing that was distinct from the historical traditions of the region.”10 However several scholars refute this line of analysis. Sagramoso advances the argument that although Salafism experienced growth in popularity from the late 1980s onwards, Dagestan had incubated Salafist communities from as early as the 1970s. Furthermore, Moore & Tumelty rightly emphasise the foundation of the All-Union Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) in Astrakhan in 1990 as perhaps one of the first coherent indigenous multi-ethnic Salafist movements that promoted a unity between Caucasian Islamists under a single banner. 11 At the heart of this organisation was the influential
Chechen ideologue Movladi Udugov, who would later become chief propagandist for the Caucasus Emirate, and Bagautdin Kebedov, the exiled spiritual leader of Dagestani Salafism.12 The debate over when Salafism reached this region is another strand of the argument over the international co-opting of Chechen and a broader North Caucasian sedition from the Russian central state. In reality it is of little relevance whether Salafism was welcomed into the region in the 1970s or indeed during the bloodiest of days in the First Chechen War. Of paramount importance is that certain local actors and communities chose to tie their flags to the mast of radical Sunni Islam. If we are to structure our analysis on whether the radicalisation of political movements is authored by foreign agents, we will ultimately continually fail to accept the personal agency of the local actors in such complex
9 IBID, p. 568.
10 Rich, Ben; Conduit, Dara, ‘The Impact of Jihadist Foreign Fighters on Indigenous Secular-Nationalist Causes:
Contrasting Chechnya and Syria’ in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 38, No. 2, (2015), p. 116.
11 Moore, Cerwyn; Tumelty, Paul, ‘Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and
Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism’ in Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1, (2009), p. 83.
12 Vatchagaev, Mairbek, ‘Sufis and Salafists Temporarily Unite in Dagestan’ in Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 9,
No. 95, (2012) -
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=39392&cHash=fa45af4d9496df5 e880c01da6e34082a#.V680XpN97ox
conflicts. As it was with Chechnya and the North Caucasus as a whole, foreign missionaries and jihadists were a boon for a cause that already had limited support amongst the natives.
Adhering to the Sagramoso narrative, Salafism began its gradual uptake in Dagestan through the work of several young imams, namely the Kebedov Brothers and Akhmad-kadi Akhtaev. Initially these figures represented a more moderate scholarship of fundamentalist Islam as they had been educated within the Sufi Naqshbandiya and Qadiriya tariqats. However, like many of their Middle Eastern contemporaries, they were influenced by the writings of Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb and Hassan al-Turabi.13
Dagestani Salafists offer an interesting case study for the development of militant Salafism in the post-Soviet period. The moderate strand of Salafism in Dagestan was headed by Akhmad-kadi Akhtaev. His political persuasions fell along similar lines as those of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Akhtaev led the local Dagestani branch of the IRP, and he and his disciples promoted the typical precepts of Salafism: a rejection of cultural innovations in the worship of Allah (bid’a) and an absolute devotion to the concept of monotheism (tawhid) without any constraint in interpretation from Islamic schools of thought, or in this instance Sufi orders.14 Although Akhtaev and his band of merry men rejected the inherent
bid’a of the Sufi creed which invariably surrounded them, they remained ultimately against
any forceful imposition of their beliefs, preferring pacific proselytism over jihad. Akhtaev encouraged initiatives which nurtured the cultural and theological scholarship of a fundamental Islam. He founded the ‘Al-Islamiyya’ organisation with a view to fostering a cultural and theological revival of Islam in his region.15 Although the more radical ideologues
place Sufis and Shiites in the category of apostasy (takfir), Akhtaev favoured developing amicable relationships with Sufi sheikhs with a view to eventual conversion rather than coercion. Akhtaev also voiced a desire for a coalition with Chechnya with a view to uniting the entire Islamic Caucasus against the ‘imperialist’ central state. He perceived this to be a feasible method for gaining a greater economic and political freedom from Moscow.16
13 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 568.
14 Ware, Robert Bruce; Kisriev, Enver, Dagestan: Russian Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North
Caucasus, (London, 2010), p. 96.
15 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’,p. 569.
The death of Akhtaev in 1998 contributed to a hardening of the resolve of the Dagestani Salafists. If Akhtaev was indeed a moderate, his death opened the door for radicals like Bagauddin and Abbas Kebedov. Further exacerbating the situation was the fact that his death came at a time of considerable unrest in neighbouring Chechnya, with the presidency of Aslan Maskhadov weakening in the face of opposition from influential Salafists like Zelimkhan Yandarbiev.17
Bagauddin Kebedov and his supporters adhered to a very strict interpretation of the Salafist doctrine. For them Sufism was tantamount to polytheism (shirk) and council between Salafists and Sufis could not be tolerated. Kebedov thus began a propaganda campaign against the local Sufi tariqats which at times turned violent. More potently, both the local Dagestani legislature and the central government in Moscow were denounced as kafir (a derogatory term for godless) which essentially meant that their authority was illegitimate. For Kebedov, like the many proponents of the radical Salafist slant of Islam, the separation of Islam and the state was irreconcilable. Addressing his followers in 1997 he stated “any law, which is not based on the Quran and the hadiths is to be considered taghut (idolatry), […] any government which does not rule according to Allah’s law is to be considered taghut, and must therefore be shunned.”18
Chechnya and Ingushetia
The scholar of passing interest in terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam in Russia could be forgiven for assuming that Chechnya was the hub for the most extreme elements of the post-Soviet Islamic revival of the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, in recent years Dagestan and Ingushetia, have been credited with being the more virulently insurrectionist republics in the North Caucasus, superseding the prowess of the Chechen revolutionaries primarily due to the undeniably successful, albeit utterly brutal, counter-insurgency and repression inflicted on any Chechens libel to oppose Ramzan Kadyrov. In many ways, this is a return to type. While the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic did produce and host Salafist debate during the perestroika years, the following accrued here was
17 Wood, Tony, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, (London, 2007), p. 135.
18 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
of considerably limited significance in comparison with neighbouring Dagestan. Why this is the case is uncertain. Although Chechnya opted to secede and then defend its secession through a military campaign, the initial driving force was a form of secular nationalism, led by former Soviet commanders like Dudayev and Maskhadov who were sooner inspired by Baltic state independence movements than an emerging political Islam epitomised by the Taliban and the Sudanese National Islamic Front.
Nevertheless, a burgeoning Salafist movement did receive a minor audience in Chechnya and Ingushetia prior to the outbreak of war in the former in 1994. With the Soviet Union on the brink of collapse, small groups emerged, dedicated to the supplanting of the local Sufi hegemony through a political discourse that put them in line with their neighbouring idealists. The mutual desire of Salafists from Dagestan and the Chechen-Ingush ASSR to cultivate close ties with a view to a political-theological union acted as a precursor for the cooperation of bellicose jamaats of the Caucasus that succeeded the demise of Chechen militant nationalism in the 2000s. However, in the early 1990s the Chechen branch of the IRP, led by Akhmed Mataev and Islam Khalimov, had to contend with this nationalism and consequently found a considerably meagre following for their cause in Chechnya.19
Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia
Radical Islam also developed in a similar manner in the Muslim majority republics of the North Caucasus of lesser note, or rather of less frequent strife: Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia. An emphasis should be placed on the context in which Salafist Islam was fostered and nurtured in these two republics, but particularly Kabardino-Balkaria. Here, as in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, a burgeoning class of Middle Eastern educated youth emerged with a steadfast desire to institute their belief system. The chief proponents of this Islamic revival were Anzor Astemirov, Rasul Kudaev and Musa Mukozhev. These three young imams rejected what they saw as imperceptive teachings of Islam, led by a corrupt clergy who colluded with the authorities. Astemirov and Mukozhev repudiated violence as their modus operandi, preferring education and proselytising in an effort to win over the
19 Moore, Cerwyn; Tumelty, Paul, ‘Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and
Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1, (2009) p. 83.
general population to their cause. Although they disagreed with the authority of the central state, they recognised that the preconditions for sharia were not yet present in Kabardino-Balkaria and therefore opted for overt transparency in all their machinations rather than a surreptitious campaign against the state that could lead to conflict. Accordingly, all missionary work was conducted in accordance with the legislature and in 1993 they established an ‘Islamic Centre’ in the capital Nalchik to continue their indoctrination through education. The success in promoting a non-violent interpretation of Salafism led all such communities in the republic to align themselves under Astemirov and Mukozhev, forming the Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat. Their tactic of promotion through peaceful and open means struck a chord with many young followers of this brand of religion, and what emerged was a unified, hierarchically well-structured organisation with the primary goal being the indoctrination through largely pedagogical and sermonising means.20
Of the regions concerned in this paper, Salafism was weakest in the Republic of Karachaevo-Cherkessia in the early 1990s. Muhammad Bidzhiev, an Islamic scholar and local representative of the IRP led the Salafist community of Karachaevo-Cherkessia. Like his counterparts in Kabardino-Balkaria, Bidzhiev recognised that establishing state functions in line with his beliefs was nigh on impossible in his region of the burgeoning Russian Federation. This was not simply because local Sufi beliefs were too strong, but also for the demographic make-up of the republic whereby just short of 50% of the population adhered to any form of Islamic faith. If Astemirov and Mukozhev were astute in their tactics for the gradual development of their ideology, Bidzhiev offered the “how not to” manual of pushing an ideology with an exceedingly limited base in a hostile environment. Rather than focusing on indoctrination, Bidzhiev chose to take control of a given territory with a view to expansion. In November 1991, with the Soviet Union in total collapse Bidzhiev set up his own small fiefdom in the town of Karachaevsk and announced the creation of the Karachai Imamate. While Bidzhiev was popular amongst the youth of the region, his endeavour put him at odds with the central authorities as well as local leaders. As a result, his Imamate was dissolved in 1993 and he was forced to flee. Other groups emerged during the mid 1990s, no
20 Kurbanov, Ruslan, ‘Globalization of Muslim Consciousness in the Caucasus: Islamic Call and Jihad’, Central
doubt influenced by the evolving conflict in Chechnya. However, Salafism remained on the margins in Karachaevo-Cherkessia.21
The First War
If radical Islam had a limited, but nevertheless devout audience in the early 1990s, the two wars fought for the soul of Chechnya from 1994 onwards dramatically altered both the uptake and the financing of this movement. While Chechen nationalism was ostensibly the driving force behind the first war (1994-1996), the very nature of the conflict, whereby a rather indigent Muslim polity was invaded by a ‘western’ military force of considerable might designated the war as a battle between Islam and a crusader. In fact, although the Chechen leader Dzhokar Dudayev was reticent to play the Muslim card as he maintained an allegiance to the ideas of secularism, he did invoke the idea of a religious war with the notion of gazawat. This was the term used to describe the resistance of the Muslim people of the North Caucasus against the Russian imperial invasion of the 18th and 19th centuries and essentially equates to holy war.22 Such a petition for mobilisation, whether intentional or
accidental, beseeched not only neighbouring Muslim communities for assistance, but also provoked Islamic fighters from the Middle East and Central Asia to migrate to Chechnya and wage their own jihad against the Kremlin forces.
The outbreak of hostilities resulted in the arrival of radical religious figures from Dagestan and further afield who came with the intention of offering military assistance as well as proselytising the indigenous population and establishing centres of education and theological guidance. One of the chief ideologues to arrive during this period was the Jordanian of Chechen extraction Sheikh al-Fathi al-Shishani.23 Due to his capacity to converse in Chechen, al-Fathi al-Shishani was able to establish with relative ease several Salafi jamaats and accrue considerable popularity amongst the youth of Chechnya. Bagauddin Kebedov also opted to spread his ideology after fleeing to Chechnya from
21 Kurbanov, Ruslan, ‘‘Urban’ and ‘Rural’ Islam in the Caucasus: Modernisation versus Conservation’,
Religion, State and Society, Vol. 39, No. 2-3, (2011), p. 357.
22 Knysh, Alexander, ‘Contextualizing the Salafi – Sufi conflict (from the Northern Caucasus to Hadramawt)‘,
Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 43, No. 4, (2007) p. 511.
23 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Dagestan in 1998. Based in the Urus-Martan area of Chechnya, Kebedov and his followers set about preaching the principles of Salafi Islam, while also cultivating links with influential local players like Zelimkhan Yandarbiev.24
During this period, arguably the most influential vagabond to land in Chechnya was Ibn al-Khattab, a jihadist in every sense of the word from Saudi Arabia. Khattab began his career in Afghanistan in 1988, ironically fighting military units of the Soviet Union. The conflict in Afghanistan with the USSR was in some ways a precursor to what we are witnessing in Syria today. Then, thousands of Muslim volunteers flocked in order to defend Afghanistan from the onslaught of the godless Soviets. Buoyed by the rallying call of scholars like the Palestinian theologian Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, units of fighters from varying backgrounds and nationalities were trained in Pakistan and formed a coherent opposition to the Soviet forces. In 1989, with the retreat of the Soviets confirmed, Azzam who would later found Al Qaeda with Osama bin Laden, advocated the establishment of transnational brigades that would defend Muslim communities and provoke a bellicose interpretation of jihad around the world.25 Khattab was very much a disciple of Azzam,
believing that jihad as a defence of Islam was the responsibility of every able bodied Muslim male. Furthermore, Khattab followed Azzam’s interpretation of belligerent jihad in conjunction with dawa (proselytising) as necessary tactics in the expansion of Islam beyond its traditional homelands. In Chechnya in this period of significant unrest, Khattab found support in influential Chechen Salafist ideologues like Movladi Udugov and popular warlords like Shamil Basaev, Salman Raduev and Arbi Baraev who either espoused similar goals or were willing to cede ideological ground in order to benefit from foreign recapitalisation and recruitment of experienced personnel that Khattab’s presence guaranteed.26
The nominal Chechen victory in the first war should have ushered in a period of harmony and consolidation. However, the conflict had destroyed the infrastructure of an already impoverished region. Furthermore, the Khasavyurt Accords did not implicitly signify a Chechen independence, meaning the burgeoning polity remained in the murky Russian sphere of influence and was unable to necessarily access global funding for the reconstruction
24 Ibid, p. 573 – 574.
25 Wilhelmsen, Julie, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Islamisation of the Chechen Separatist
Movement’ in Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1, (2005), p. 41.
26 Giuliano, Elise, ‘Islamic Identity and Political Mobilisation in Russia: Chechnya and Dagestan Compared’,
of the cities and towns. Moreover, the Kremlin was far from forthcoming with aid, especially considering the casualties incurred at the hands of the Chechen military.27 This situation of
destitution meant that Salafism was ripe for consumption. Not satisfied with subverting the secular nationalism previously advocated, Udugov, Basaev and Khattab drew up plans for the unification of the Caucasian Muslim republics under the Black Standard flag of Islam. The first step was uniting Chechnya and Dagestan. In 1997, Udugov established the movement
Islamskaya Natsiya which endeavoured to bring about an Islamic State on the territories of
Dagestan and Chechnya. Udugov stated that “Ichkeria (Chechnya) is an integral part of Dagestan […] historically our peoples have had very close ties, so it is quite natural for the nations of Dagestan and Chechnya to wish to live in one united Islamic state.” 28 Following on from this, the Congress of Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan (CPID) was inaugurated in April 1998 with Basaev as the head of the organisation. In what can only be described as an unintentionally facetious appellation, the military wing of the CPID was entitled the Islamic Peace-making Battalion.29
These machinations were not simply manifestations of an expansionist Chechen agenda. Bagauddin Kebedov and his Dagestani Salafi compatriots were also in favour of unifying Islam and installing sharia on much of the North Caucasian region, with a Chechen-Dagestani unification the logical first step. The failure to bring about an extensive adoption of Salafism and consequent societal change through peaceful means, forced Kebedov to alter his stance on violent insurrection. In 1998, in the Buinaksk district of Dagestan, a jamaat under the command of Djarulla Radjbaddinov unified and took over four villages in central Dagestan – Kadar, Durangi, Chabanmakhi and Karamakhi – removing the juridical authority of the central government and installing their interpretation of sharia. Khattab and Basaev played a significant role in the arming and defensive organisation of this burgeoning independent entity through the CPID.30 Emboldened by the untrammelled success of this initial move for sedition, Khattab and Basaev made a significant attempt to couple Dagestan and Chechnya with a minor invasion of sorts from Chechnya into the Botlikh district of Dagestan in August 1999. Basaev was steadfast in his interpretation of events:
27 Lieven, Anatol, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, (New Haven, 1998), p. 142-143.
28 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 574.
29 Ibid
30 Moore, Cerwyn, ‘Foreign Bodies: Transnational Activism, the Insurgency in the North Caucasus and
“What is going on in Dagestan is a mighty ‘jihad’, a holy war to expel the infidels from an Islamic land, which has been in the Islamic fold for thirteen centuries. […] We are fighting for the proclamation of an Islamic republic and the establishment of a greater Chechen empire in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.”31
Despite this gradual acclivity towards the more militant Salafist dogma in Dagestan and Chechnya, Sufism remained the dominant credenda of the Muslim communities. Even Salafists in the other republics remained relatively pacifistic. In Chechnya itself, the leader of the republic, Aslan Maskhadov, was abhorred by the actions of the band of pugnacious warlords led by Basaev and Khattab. In Kabardino-Balkaria, the duo of Astemirov and Mukozhev remained reticent to violent insurrection and strongly canvassed their flocks to remain ardent in their support for placid proselytising. While the ‘moderates’ broadly succeeded in upholding non-violent opposition, some youthful radicals nevertheless absconded from all reaches of the Northern Caucasus, and indeed from other Muslim communities of the Russian Federation, to Chechnya in order to join the sedition and acquire both military and ideological instruction at training camps set up by Khattab and Basaev.
The Second War
The arrival of Vladimir Putin on the political scene dramatically altered the secessionism fomenting in the Northern Caucasus region. The irredentism of Basaev and co. offered the recently appointed Prime Minister a potent provocation for securing his authority and subsequent ascension to the presidency. The Khasavyurt Accord of 1996 had concluded an uncertain peace between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Although a de facto separation was concluded, the treaty failed to ensure Russian recognition of the Chechen state, rather deferring such a determination until 2001.32 However, the simple
notion that the Kremlin was forced to negotiate a settlement of a conflict with a force of comparable mediocrity in terms of strength and resources meant that the First Chechen War was nothing short of a humiliating defeat in an époque of already composite disarray for the successor state of the Soviet Union.
31 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 575.
32 Akhmadov, Ilias; Lanskoy, Miriam, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost (New York, 2010),
If the skirmishes and incursions of Chechen rebels into neighbouring Dagestan presented the case for round two, a series of bombings on residential apartment buildings of a very questionable origin ensured widespread public approval for another military intervention.33 Although discussing the events that formed the casus belli for another Russian escapade into it’s breakaway southern province risks a certain digression from the matter at hand; the quite plausible culpability of the clandestine authorities in the bombings of September 1999 is a valuable reference for the unscrupulous tactics that were to be employed under Vladimir Putin in bringing Chechnya to heel. In an effort to avoid the typical tropes of conspiracy theories as to why the FSB may have played a minor, or indeed major, role in the events of September 1999, I will simply lay out the known facts at my disposal. Initially the Russian authorities were sluggish in their response to the revolt and invasion of the ‘Wahhabists’ in Dagestan in August 1999. However, the radicals were broadly condemned by the local population and thus were ill equipped to truly claim sovereignty over any significant quarter of Dagestan beyond villages already receptive to the Salafi ideology.34 Nevertheless, the Russian forces eventually responded with Putin ordering the bombing of Salafi enclaves in both Dagestan and Chechnya. Limited but sufficient ground forces pushed the rebels back over the border into Chechnya. What followed the brief conflict in Dagestan and preceded the Russian invasion of Chechnya was a series of bombings on apartment buildings against civilian targets. The first such act of aggression occurred on 4 September with the bombing of a building in Buinaksk, Dagestan housing military personnel and their families which resulted in the deaths of 65 people.35 Following on from this, two bombings on 6 and 13 of September in Moscow killed a total of 228 civilians, with another 16 to follow in the city of Volgodonsk in the Rostov Oblast on 16 September.36 Considering how
unpopular the First Chechen War proved to be, a weighty pretext was needed for the Russian electorate to acquiesce to a second crusade against the southerners. Furthermore, Putin was an unknown quantity at the beginning of his premiership, garnering a meagre 2% approval rating at the outset of the Dagestan operations which was to significantly jump to 25% by late October as a result of his jingoistic rhetoric and alacrity in manoeuvring against the Chechen polity. So the bombings provided justification for invasion and boosted the profile of the
33 Wood, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, p. 98. 34 Politkovskaya, Anna, A Dirty War, (London, 2001), p. xx.
35 Souleimanov, Emil, An Endless War: The Russian-Chechen Conflict in Perspective (Frankfurt am Main,
2007), p. 153.
36 Zürcher, Christoph, The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus, (New
unheard of Leningradtsy who would be king, or tsar in this instance. This makes the events of 22-23 September in Ryazan all the more murky. With the Russian population on high alert from the indiscriminate terrorism of the preceding weeks, residents of an apartment building in Ryazan on the night of 22 September alerted authorities of suspicious goings on in the basement of their building. Police duly found explosives and a timer and swiftly managed to apprehend the culprits, only for said persons to turn out to be FSB agents. For 48 hours the FSB failed to offer an adequate justification for the actions of their agents, only finally settling on a ludicrous fable that they were merely setting up a training exercise for local law enforcement.37 Considering that Khattab, Maskhadov and Basaev steadfastly denied any involvement in the various bombings,38 and evidence of sufficient Chechen culpability never truly established, one could be forgiven for questioning the motives of the FSB, an organisation headed by Putin until his appointment as Prime Minister in August 1999. As Tony Wood quite eloquently puts it:
“The Riazan’ incident captures several essential qualities of Putin’s Russia: at the very least, the government had manipulated the fears of the populace and placed a breathtakingly low value on the security of its own citizens. The truth could be more monstrous still: a regime driven by cold calculation and bottomless cynicism, willing to murder its own people to further the goals of an authoritarian, kleptocratic elite.”39
The apartment bombings of September 1999 were to set the tone for the coming events in Chechnya and the responses of the Chechen rebels. Although ideology and nationalism played their roles in motivating and justifying the atrocities for which both sides were culpable; the Second Chechen War appears to have been a conflict intensely driven by revenge more than anything else. The Kremlin took revenge on Chechnya for the apparent culpability in the apartment bombings, but also for their military defeat three years previously. In response, the Chechens, for whom the notion of revenge or blood feud is ingrained in their cultural identity,40 embarked upon a campaign of particularly virulent terrorism, most brutally remembered outside of the region with the hostage crises at the Dubrovka Theatre in 2002 and in Beslan in 2004. In qualifying the motivations of the culprits
37 Satter, David, Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State, (New Haven, 2003), p. 28. 38 Akhmadov, Ilias; Lanskoy, Miriam, The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost (New York, 2010),
p. 162.
39 Wood, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, p. 99.
40 Janeczko, Matthew, ‘‘Faced with death, even a mouse bites’: Social and religious motivations behind
of acts such as the Beslan school siege there is a danger that one could be accused of condoning such tactics, which of course is absurd. The siege of School Number One in September 2004 resulted in the deaths of 331 civilians, of which more than half were children under the age of 12.41 While it is facile to simply conclude that the perpetrators of this event are morally bankrupt, summations of this nature only serve to perpetuate an eye for an eye brutality. The justification offered for Beslan by Basaev was that the Chechen separatists want “to show the world, again and again, the true face of the Russian regime, the true face of Putin with his satanic horns so that the world sees his true face. In order to stop the genocide, we will stop at nothing.”42 The ‘true face’ for which Basaev references is the one that repeatedly and indiscriminately bombs civilian targets. There is a myriad of examples of serious Russian indiscretions committed by the armed forces during the Second Chechen War. On 18 October, 1999, a missile made a direct hit against the central market of Grozny, killing 130 civilians. But even this act was relatively tame in comparison to the events of 4 February, 2000 in the village of Katyr-Yurt. Here, the Russian air force used vacuum bombs, a type of explosive that essentially weaponises the oxygen in the target vicinity. After inflicting considerable casualty on a civilian population, the Russians offered an evacuation to the surviving inhabitants by providing a convoy of buses. Once outside the town, the convoy was itself bombed. 363 people were killed in total throughout the day.43 In an interview with the Swedish TT News agency in 2005, Basaev once more laid out his world view in relation to the barbarity of his actions:
“Today, a great many people are once again convinced that a brazen and unceremonious law of force, rather than the force of the law, is dominant in the world. And no matter how much we try to come to terms with the rules of this world, neither so-called international law, nor democracy, nor human rights and other fancy things will save us from genocide; we merely grow weaker from relying on these terms and promises. While they talk to us about democracy, international law and the rest, 200,000 of our people have been killed; that is 25 percent of our people.” 44
41 Zürcher, Christoph, The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus, (New
York, 2007), p. 96.
42 Ó Tuathail, Gearóid, ‘Placing blame: Making sense of Beslan’ in Political Geography, Vol. 28 (2009), p. 8. 43 Sweeney, John, ‘Revealed: Russia’s worst war crime in Chechnya’, The Guardian, 5 March, 2000 -
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/mar/05/russia.chechnya - Consulted 12 August, 2016.
44 Interview with Shamil Basayev by Swedish TT news agency -
Chapter II: Towards a Global Doctrine
Radicalising the “Moderates”
The brutality of the Second Chechen War, coupled with authoritative measures taken against the practice of ‘Wahhabism’ in the North Caucasus region as a whole resulted in the radicalisation of hitherto peaceful Salafists. Although the Kremlin was to succeed in reclaiming Chechnya and installing a loyal, local autocrat to govern the republic with an iron fist; the insurgency that was to follow the relatively brief frontline battle against Grozny pushed many previously open radicals underground and amplified the connections between the various jamaats of the region and the experienced hardliners of Chechnya.
The mid-2000s saw the emergence of Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria as the primary hubs of influential ideologues and combatants of the burgeoning global jihad of the North Caucasus. The previously peaceful Salafist movement of Kabardino-Balkaria developed a potent militant faction under the initial stewardship of Muslim Atayev. Splintering from the nonviolent philosophy fostered by Astemirov, the Yarmuk jamaat called on a jihad to be established against the Kabardino-Balkaria authorities and central government and stated that a defensive jihad was mandatory (fard’ayn) for every able-bodied Muslim.45 A signifier of the drift towards a transnational Islamist ideology is the title ‘Yarmuk’ whose origins reside in the Middle East, rather than Transcaucasia. ‘Yarmuk’ is the name of a river that straddles the Israeli-Jordanian border. The title also references an early military victory in the expansion of Islam in 636 AD.46 The actions of the Yarmuk battalion and the consequent retributions of the authorities only served to embitter and radicalise those advocating non-violent disobedience. Astemirov joined the fight in 2005 after being accused of orchestrating and partaking in an attack against the Federal Anti-Narcotics Service in December 2004.47 Previously reticent of bellicose tactics, Astemirov recognised that regardless of his stated aims and means, he and his followers can and would be accused of odious acts when it suited the authorities to subvert their cause. Astemirov was subsequently
45 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 577.
46 Hahn, Gordon M., The Caucasus Emirate Mujahideen: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and
Beyond, (Jefferson, 2014), p. 185.
47 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
appointed Emir of Yarmuk in the Spring of 2005, after the death of Atayev in late 2004. His colleague and compatriot Musa Mukozhev, an even more ardent proponent of non-violent insurrection joined the jihadist movement in late 2006. The deviation of these key figures of pacifistic proselytising Islam to jihad was significant. Both Mukozhev and Astemirov held significant sway in the Salafi communities within and beyond the borders of Kabardino-Balkaria. Their tergiversation of passivity was a boon for all proponents of jihad from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Their advocacy of jihad would only serve to boost the numbers of fighters to the surreptitious regional cause that was to transform into the Caucasus Emirate.
In the region, of Karachaevo-Cherkessia from the early 2000s, the burgeoning Salafi movement of the 1990s also suffered under stricter controls deemed necessary by the central government. Much of the movement was forced underground as a result of invasive counter-terrorism operations that coincided with the Second Chechen War. However, much like the relative lull in activities in the immediate aftermath of the war, the militants emerged from their foxholes once more in 2004, targeting government and administrative officials, law enforcement agents and members of the regional Islamic clergy whom they considered apostates. Although the effectiveness of the actions of the Karachai jamaat paled in comparison to that of their brethren in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia; the development of a coherent jihadist ideology in a heretofore compliant republic signified that rather than quelling the radicals that were so vehemently combatting the Russian forces in Chechnya, Putin and his cronies were facilitating its dilution and dispersal throughout the North Caucasus Federal District. However, the weakness of the Karachai jamaat in both manpower and ideologues required that it unite with the more powerful movements of the region. With the Chechen cause on the wane, the leader of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria opted to develop closer ties with associate movements in a consolidated fashion. With this, Sheikh Abdul-Kalim Sadulaev inaugurated in May 2005 the ‘Caucasus Front’, an organisation ostensibly under the control of the Chechen leadership, in which logistical cooperation was promoted between the jamaats of Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Chechnya, Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Stavropol, Adygea, Krasnodar and Dagestan.48
48 Moore, Cerwyn; Tumelty, Payl, ‘Assessing Unholy Alliances in Chechnya: From Communism and
Nationalism to Islamism and Salafism’ in Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1, (2009), p. 87.
During this same period, Dagestan went through a limited reformation amongst its Salafi adherents. The rebellious actions of Bagauddin Kebedov and his complicity in the Chechen invasion of Dagestan in 1999 had resulted in a harsh crackdown and limited bombing campaign against certain villages. The vast majority of the population, including those inclined towards Salafism denounced Kebedov and his followers. What emerged in the first half of the 2000s in Dagestan was a move towards the nonviolent preaching methods once advocated by Akhmad-kadi Akhtaev. At the heart of this revival of sorts was a burgeoning educated youth who began to promote the study of theology and Islamic history over notions of jihad against the infidels. The primary actor at the centre of this movement was Yasin Rasulov. Unlike Kebedov and his cohorts who lauded the bellicose sermons of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Sayyid Qutb, Rasulov looked to the writings of more moderate Salafists like Yusef al-Qaradawi, a chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood during the latter part of the twentieth century.49
However, as in Kabardino-Balkaria, militant Salafism found its feet once more towards late 2003 in response to repressions against ‘Wahabbism’. Several fighting jamaats were established in Dagestan during this period. Although they were initially guided by veterans of the Chechen wars like Rappani Khalilov, these jamaats began to appeal to a youth all too accustomed to police harassment because of suspicion of collusion or participation with militants. Essentially the conjecture of the authorities became a self-fulfilling prophecy – by targeting young male members of Salafi communities with charges of participation or association with the militant factions, they hardened a minority already ill at ease with the pervasiveness of the counter-insurgency and the corruption of the administrative class.
As with Astemirov and Mukozhev, Rasulov began to gravitate towards the more antagonistic protest that jihad offered. Rasulov sought justification for his progression from peaceful disassociation by emphasising a linear narrative between the nineteenth century struggle of Imam Shamil against Russian imperialism and the growing violent intransigence to the Kremlin in the modern day North Caucasus. The jihad in the North Caucasus was thus a regional, historical struggle between Russian imperialism by Dagestani led factions of the North Caucasus. However, Rasulov reappropriated the driving philosophy of Imam Shamil.
49 Dannreuther, Roland, ‘Shifting Dynamics of the Insurgency and Counter- insurgency in the North Caucasus’,
He negated the notion that Shamil was motivated by Sufism, and instead forwarded the argument that Dagestani Salafism, introduced into the region in the seventeenth century by Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Quduqi, provided the true inspiration for the resistance.50
“The nineteenth century Salafi movement of Muhammad b. Abdul Wahhab became the catalyst of the anti-colonial movement in the entire world, including in the North Caucasus. At the end of the twentieth century, Dagestani Salafis re-took this idea of the creation of an Islamic state in the eastern North Caucasus.”51
The Dagestani militant jamaats benefitted significantly from the gradual attraction of Rasulov and his contemporaries to violent jihad. Rasulov joined the fighting jamaat Shariat of Rasul Makasharipov in 2005. Due to his scholarly wisdom he became the chief ideologue of the jamaat. His presence, along with other ideologues of a similar stature, like Abu-Zagir Mantayev,52 provided a theological legitimacy to their armed struggle, further bolstering support and recruitment. Although Rasulov was eventually killed by security forces in April 2006, his relatively brief sojourn in the Shariat Jamaat helped aid an expanding cause. By 2006 jamaats of varying degrees of power and prestige were to be found in Makhachkala, Kizlyar, Gubden, Khasavyurt, Buinaksk and Botlikh. The stated motivations of the assorted militant groups of Dagestan, as published by Kavkaz Center in November 2005, places them within the same global cause against imperialism and corruption with the intention of implementing a pious, puritanical society.53
“Our purpose – is establishment of valid society on the basis of the laws of Allah. Only in this society is possible prosperity and morals. The state Kufra does not give to achieve the peaceful call, understanding, that the truth of Islam will conquer the hearts of people. Therefore, all forces of government machine today are to the suppression of Islam, destruction and erosion of its boundaries. The Moslems of Daghestan undergo spiritual and physical oppression from the side of authority.”54
50 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 580.
51 Ibid
52 Kurbanov, Ruslan, ‘‘Urban’ and ‘Rural’ Islam in the Caucasus: Modernisation versus Conservation’,
Religion, State and Society, Vol. 39, No. 2-3, (2011), p. 357.
53 Ibid
54 Jamaats “Shariat”, ‘Our Purpose – Establishment of the Validity’, Kavkaz Center, 7 November 2005 -
For the Republic of Ingushetia, it was its proximity to Chechnya that played a decisive role in the radicalisation of it’s disaffected youth. The brutality of the Second Chechen War resulted in a considerable population of Chechen refugees fleeing to Ingushetia. By late 2000 it was estimated that 300,000 Chechens were residing in Ingushetia. The ascension of the former member of the KGB and FSB, Murat Zyazikov, to the office of the Ingush presidency led to a repression against Salafi communities and would be insurgents. Viewing refugee camps as possible sanctuaries for Chechen radicals, Zyazikov ordered clean up operations that were characterised by violations against human rights such as arbitrary arrests and ‘disappearances’ of suspected insurgents.55 This repression served to radicalise and mobilise communities hitherto less inclined towards jihad. Ingushetia developed into one of the most violent and unstable republics of the region from 2005 onwards. The emergence and developing prowess of the Ingush jamaat was encapsulated by the events of 22 June 2004, when an organised band of Chechen and Ingush militants attacked several municipal targets in the capital of Nazran, which resulted in nearly 100 casualties, mostly of security forces.56 The Nazran raid, along with a similar action against Nalchik, the capital of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, represented well the dispersal of conflict throughout the region.57
While the Ingush were motivated by similar ideas of combatting Russian imperialism and installing an Islamic State within their fiefdoms, unlike the Dagestanis and the Kabardins, the Ingush lacked in terms of ideological leaders, which weakened both their propaganda arm and their ability to proselytise and recruit. Thus the Ingush jamaat was less vocal than their contemporaries. Nevertheless, on 8 July 2004 Kavkaz Center published a statement from the Ingush jamaat which laid out their motivations and ideology. Relying on the translation from Russian of Domitilla Sagramoso, the jamaat of Ingushetia made a declaration that mixed local nationalism with the notions of liberation through jihad:
“Russian troops, together with Ossetian formations seized Ingush territories, and expelled the Ingush from their homes. Thousands of Ingush Muslims were killed, hundreds went missing. […] Anyone who cooperates with the occupiers and helps them in their fight against Muslims either
55 Souleimanov, Emil; Ditrych, Ondrej, ‘The Internationalisation of the Russian–Chechen Conflict: Myths and
Reality’, Europe Asia Studies, Vol. 60, No. 8, (2008), p. 1218
56 Aliyev, Huseyn, ‘Aid Efficiency in an Armed Conflict: The role of civil society in the escalation of violence
in the North Caucasus’, IFHV Working Paper, Vol. 1, No. 1, (June 2011), p. 9.
57 Kurbanov, Ruslan, ‘‘Urban’ and ‘Rural’ Islam in the Caucasus: Modernisation versus Conservation’,
with weapons, or as an informant, is one of them. The Shari’ah law will be applied to those individuals. These people will be punished by death, because those who fight or help infidels, who are waging a war against Muslims, are to be excluded from Islam.”58
The denouncement of “Ossetian formations” is a reference to the dispute between Ingushetia and North Ossetia over the status of the Eastern Prigorodny district of the Republic of North-Ossetia-Alania. The conflict relates to the historical repression of the Chechen and Ingush people under both the Tsarist regimes and Stalin. Due to suspicions of collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War, the Chechens and Ingush were deported to Central Asia. East Prigorodny was subsequently transferred to North Ossetia in 1944. In 1957, some years after the death of Stalin, the deported peoples were allowed to return home. However, East Prigorodny remained in the majority Orthodox state of North Ossetia.59 In referencing this conflict, the Ingush jamaat portrayed a more closed interpretation of the global Salafist doctrine. Although Islam was imperative, nationalist interests were of great concern and acted as an at times separate motivator for insurrection against Russia and ostensibly as a jingoistic call to arms for the invasion of North Ossetia. Ingushetia’s dearth of educated Salafi ideologues made it more difficult for the jihadists to fully supplant the nationalist fervour. Ali Taziev (Emir Magas), the leader of the Ingush
jamaat, struggled to integrate some militant groups who were ill at ease with the Salafi
ideology and steadfastly promoted the cause of Ingush independent nationalism. Taziev was a close ally of Basaev. From 2006 until his arrest in 2010, he achieved a certain degree of success in uniting the various militant groups of Ingushetia under the banners of the Caucasus Front and then the Caucasus Emirate.60
In a similar vein, Chechen militancy maintained some notions of nationalism as a driving force, well into the mid 2000s. The Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov, had never adopted the radical ideology forwarded by the likes of Yandarbiev and Udugov. Even Shamil Basaev, a man lazily denounced as Chechnya’s Osama bin Laden,61 eschewed an outright embrace of global Salafism. Indeed, although Basaev cultivated profitable amicability with members of the global mujahideen like Khattab and Melfi Al Hussaini Al Harbi (better
58 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 582.
59 International Crisis Group, ‘Chechnya: The Inner Abroad’, Europe Report, No. 236, (30 June, 2015), p. 15. 60 Campana, Aurélie; Ratelle, Jean-François, ‘A Political Sociology Approach to the Diffusion of Conflict from
Chechnya to Dagestan and Ingushetia, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 37, No. 2, (2014), p. 127.
known by his nom de guerre Muhannad), his chief concern was the North Caucasus. In a sense, Basaev represented a modern incarnation of his namesake Imam Shamil. His cause was the Muslim people of the North Caucasus first and foremost. Maskhadov, Basaev and Udugov all represented different forms of insurrection in Chechnya. Understanding the motivations and the ideology each espoused can go a long way to understanding the conflict at hand and its development from a regional affair to a possible bit part player in a global revolution. Maskhadov, the former military commander in the Soviet Armed Forces, was a devout Muslim and recognised both the value of Islam as a motivator and its necessary input in the formation of a successful Chechen independent state. In 2002 Maskadov approved changes to the constitution of the Republic of Ichkeria which added more Islamic elements to its design. The first article of the constitution stated that the “Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya, is a sovereign, independent Islamic legal state.” It also stipulated that the Quran and the Sunnah were the sources of all legal doctrine, which ultimately invoked the establishment of some form of sharia.62 However, Maskhadov remained steadfast against jihad and maintained a tumultuous relationship with Basaev and other militants, often denouncing their actions as terrorism, and renouncing the involvement of the CRI in such operations.63
Movladi Udugov represented the more fundamentally extremist element of the insurgency. He rejected all forms of modern governance and staunchly promoted the creation of a true Islamic State in the North Caucasus with the enforcement of strict sharia of paramount importance.
Basaev was possibly the most enigmatic of actors in the conflict between the Muslim populations of the North Caucasus and the Russian Federation. He advocated the creation of an Islamic State in Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus as a whole. However, despite Basaev’s close relationship with Khattab, his motivations for insurrection were not purely in defence of his dogma. Although he was greatly influenced by the Quran and Islamic scholars; he also drew inspiration from secular figures like Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.64 In 2004, Basaev published Book of a Mujahideen, a rethinking of Paulo Coelho’s Manual of the Warrior of
the Light, in which the reader is educated on the notions of jihad and what it means to be a
62 Sagramoso, ‘The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the
Global Jihadist Movement?’, p. 583.
63 Wood, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, p. 151.
mujahid.65 The book is a general manual for both tactical warfare and spiritual guidance for would-be militants. Basaev’s allegiance lay with the people of the North Caucasus rather than specifically the global umma. This is evident in his exploits in the conflicts over Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. In 1992 Basaev and an estimated 300 strong Chechen battalion assisted the Azerbaijani side in their war with Armenia over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1993 he then led the Chechen-Abkhaz battalion in aid of the Abkhaz separatist movement against Georgian aggression. There are some suggestions that the Chechen forces under his command in Abkhazia received both training and logistical support from Russia.66 Basaev’s desire to free the people of the North Caucasus from Russian (and arguably Georgian) hegemony played a role in expanding the Chechen conflict beyond its initial borders. From 2002 onwards Basaev worked with radicals throughout the region in order to establish militant jamaats in each republic. The cacophonous ethnic makeup of the North Caucasus meant that nationalism was ill equipped as a motivation for a unified break from the Kremlin’s authority. Militant Salafism on the other hand offered the perfect marriage of revolution on the grounds of equality within the confines of a creed that was representative of the population and eschewed any notions of ethnic superiority. An Avar, a Chechen and Kabarday could all fight under the flag of militant Islam with the united goal of installing an Islamic State.
Imarat Kavkaz
The respective deaths of Maskhadov and Basaev in 2005 and 2006 facilitated the gradual regional and subsequent global shift of the ideology supplanting Chechen nationalism. Maskhadov was succeeded by Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, the hitherto chairman of the Supreme
Shari’ah Court of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Bringing the Chechen state model more
into line with Islamic ideals, Sadulaev reaffirmed the supremacy of Islamic law and abolished the institution of the presidency in favour of that of Emir of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.67 As previously alluded to, Sadulaev like Basaev favoured spreading the Chechen
jihad beyond its borders and established an organisational structure whereby the various
65 Basaev, Shamil, Book of the Mujahideen, (2004), p. 1.
66 Hughes, James, ‘The Chechnya Conflict: Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?’, Demokratizatsiya, Vol. 15, No. 3,
(2007), p. 303.
67 Russell, John, ‘Kadyrov's Chechnya—Template, Test or Trouble for Russia's Regional Policy?’, Europe Asia
