By Mairbek Vatchagaev Politicians in the North Caucasus are increasingly calling on the government to step up efforts against the ...
By Mairbek Vatchagaev
Politicians in the North Caucasus are increasingly calling on the
government to step up efforts against the so-called Islamic State (IS) and take
action against Russian citizens who support it. Meanwhile, the militants who
became affiliated with the IS in the North Caucasus one year ago have not shown
much activity since then (see EDM, September 10). The only two known attacks by
IS affiliates in the North Caucasus have been the murder of the imam of a
mosque in a Dagestani village (Kavkavsky Uzel, September 10; see EDM, September
17) and the shooting of a fortuneteller’s family, also in Dagestan (Kavkavsky
Uzel, September 15).
The wave of calls in Russia for the West to join forces with the Kremlin
to fight the Islamic State have “unexpectedly” coincided with emerging evidence
of Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict on the side of President Bashar
al-Assad. Against the backdrop of rising public awareness about Russian
involvement in Syria (Rosbalt.ru, September 8), the government launched another
wave of propaganda against the IS. In Chechnya, for example, the republic’s
head, Ramzan Kadyrov, met with those accused of having spread rumors about IS
activities. The meeting was broadcast on the Chechen state TV channel. Chechen
authorities found out about these suspects by wiretapping their telephones,
Internet data, and instant message applications like Whatsapp, Viber, Skype and
others. According to Kadyrov, “one of the [suspected] young men sought infirm,
weak-minded peers and tried to persuade them to go to Syria. He sent around
messages that contained threats to members of the authorities and their
families” (Instagram.com, September 15). Kadyrov wanted to send the message
that he controls everything in the republic and that no one is free to write,
send or listen to news about the Islamic State.
At the same time, Kadyrov called on all Muslim countries to join forces
to fight the Islamic State, which he called the Iblis State (State of Satan).
Kadyrov hinted that the United States was behind the IS: “I advise the masters
of the IS to come to their senses, stop the games that are aimed at the
destruction of the Muslim world. The Muslim world has not yet awakened. When it
does, the masters of the Iblis State and all types of al-Qaedas [sic] will
regret it” (Riafan.ru, September 15). Kadyrov seems to be convinced that the
West created all Muslim terrorist organizations to destroy the Muslim world
from within (Topwar.ru, September 15). This kind of talk aligns neatly with the
official Russian ideological propaganda routinely imposed on the country’s
population; Russian propaganda blames the West for everything happening in the
Middle East. At the same time, Kadyrov did not forget to support President
Vladimir Putin, who himself has been calling on the West to join forces against
the radicals because they are a threat to all countries (Instagram.com,
September 14; see EDM, September 17).
Chechnya’s ruler stated that the government should legally cancel the
Russian passports of those individuals who became terrorists and ban their
reentry to Russia (RT, September 15). Kadyrov’s longtime foe, Ingushetia’s
governor Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, unexpectedly came out in support of this
initiative. According to Yevkurov, republican deputies in Ingushetia have
drafted an appeal asking the federal authorities to adopt such legislation
(Rg.ru, September 8). Yevkurov believes the threat of losing Russian
citizenship will keep many young people from taking a hasty, fatal step. It
should be noted, however, that those who travel to the Middle East to fight for
the IS are rarely sentimental people or thrill seekers. Rather, they are ready
to travel to the Middle East to die for their “caliph” and are quite dangerous
in many respects. Russian federal authorities and the authorities in the North
Caucasian republics should be concerned about those people returning from Syria
who fought for the Islamic State, since fealty to this militant extremist
organization is incredibly difficult to reverse.
Kadyrov signaled that he is not only makings statements about fighting
the Islamic State, but is also taking action. Chechnya’s governor convened a
government meeting on the issue of countering the ideology of terrorism and
extremism. Kadyrov’s aides for interaction with law enforcement agencies,
Daniil Martynov and Yuri Torshin, Chechen Security Council Secretary Vakhit
Usmaev, and commanders of the Ministry of Interior’s troops in Chechnya
participated in the meeting (Instagram.com, September 15).
Setting up special ethnic units in Chechnya and their ongoing training
under the guidance of the former members of the Russian special forces’ Alpha
Group (Aif.ru, May 21, 2014) can now be seen in a different light. These
Chechen units could turn up in Syria to help prop up President al-Assad’s
regime and also accompany Russian units that might be deployed to aid the
embattled Syrian leader. Thus, the situation in Syria could replicate what
happened last year in Ukraine, where Chechens fought on both sides of the
frontline—some on the Ukrainian side and others on the side of the
Russia-backed separatists. It is hard to explain otherwise why Moscow would
invest its resources so heavily in training Kadyrov’s Chechen special forces,
which constitute overkill for the needs of the republic itself (for more
details on Kadyrov's elite units training with Jordanian special forces, see
EDM, March 27, 2015).
For the domestic audience, Russian propaganda has regularly played down
the strength of the militants over the past 15 years, even when the insurgency
threat was quite high. The message for the outside world has been quite
different. At the start of the second Russian-Chechen war in 1999, Vladimir
Putin managed to convince the Western political establishment that his country
was not fighting separatism in the North Caucasus, but international terrorism,
part of the global jihadist movement. Putin is now trying to ally with the West
against terrorism once again. The question is whether the West will pretend for
a second time that it trusts Russia, or whether, this time, it will recognize
the position Russia is really taking by helping al-Assad’s embattled regime.
About The Author:
About The Author:
Dr. Mairbek Vatchagaev is a noted Chechen historian and political analyst
on the North Caucasus and a former senior ranking official in the Chechen
government of Aslan Maskhadov. A native of Chechnya, Dr. Vatchagaev is
currently a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation and a
regular contributor to the Jamestown publication Eurasia Daily Monitor where he
writes about developments in the North Caucasus. He has published 56 articles
on the history of Chechnya and Sufism in the North-Caucasus; 285 articles
related to political science on the North Caucasus and Russia; including five
books on the history and religion in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. In 1997
he published a book on the first 100 days in office of the first ever
democratically elected President of Chechnya—Aslan Maskhadov. He is also the
author of the book, “Chechnya in the 19th Century Caucasian Wars.”
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