GROZNY ATTACK INDICATES REVIVAL OF CHECHEN NATIONALIST INSURGENCY
On October 19, four Chechen militants stormed the Chechen parliament in Grozny, causing the deaths of six police officers and wounding 17. According to the Russian Interfax news agency, the militants arrived at the parliament by car and forced their way into the parliamentary compound; one of them blew himself up and two were shot dead. This attack is the second serious incident in Chechnya in recent months. In August, militants launched a massive attack on Chechnya’s pro-Russian leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s native village of Tsentoroi. These incidents in Chechnya indicate a split in the North Caucasian insurgency.
BACKGROUND: Chechnya, which experienced two brutal wars in the 1990s and early 2000s and was the major theater of violence in the North Caucasus over the last decade, has ironically been relatively calm in recent years. Instead, neighboring republics (in particular Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria) have witnessed an increase in armed activities after fighters from Chechnya sought refuge in these republics, increasing the numbers of local insurgents. This resulted in the emergence of the “Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus" (IEC), which serves as an umbrella group for the armed Islamist movements in the region.
The leader of the (IEC), Doku Umarov, appeared last August in a video clip saying that he was resigning from the leadership of the "Emirate”, only to withdraw his resignation a day later, stating that the clip was fabricated and he was still the Emir. Three top Chechen rebel field commanders (the would-be leader of the Emirate and Emir of the Vilayat of Nokhchiycho [Chechnya] Khusein Gakayev, Umarov’s former successors Aslambek Vadalov and Tarkhan Gaziyev) and one Arab commander who goes under the name “Muhanad”, then renounced their bayat (oath of allegiance) to Umarov, while insisting they were not withdrawing from the Emirate. Later, 25 other commanders claimed to support Umarov’s replacement.
These developments suggest that the IEC is divided between “jihadists” who want to link the North Caucasus to the global jihad and take advantage of the presence of Umarov and his reputation to secure funds, and those who are aiming to “re-Chechenize” the resistance movement, stop its regional expansion and take advantage of the existing unofficial support for the Chechen cause in Muslim countries and in the West.
Among those supporting the jihadist faction are the leaders of armed groups in Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria. As a Chechen analyst put it, “this means that there is an ongoing struggle between the two major components of the North Caucasus movement: the nationalists and the supporters of the idea of creating an Islamic state from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea”.
IMPLICATIONS: The latest attacks inside Chechnya and the daily violent incidents across the North Caucasus suggest that both factions are capable of carrying out attacks either inside Chechnya according to the aims of the nationalist faction of the IEC, or to expand operations in the entire region according to those of the jihadist faction.
With nearly 300 attacks or instances of insurgency-related violence tied to the IEC this year alone, it is apparent that the Chechen jihad is spreading through the North Caucasus even as it recedes within Chechnya itself. In descending order, the main sites of such violence are now Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Chechnya and Karachai-Cherkessia.
In this context, the split between nationalists and jihadists does not mean that insurgents are weakened. In contrast, their violent activities are expected to increase. By storming the parliament building and conducting the attack on Tsentoroi village, the nationalist faction is showing its capabilities to again destabilize Chechnya. According to the Russian state news agency ITAR-TASS, quoting Chechnya’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the militants who attacked the parliament building were from a “unit” led by Khusein Gakayev. The Ministry’s expert said that “according to our information, today's attack, aimed at eliminating the parliamentary leadership, was planned by Gakayev, who recently ostentatiously stopped taking orders from Doku Umarov and has taken most of the extremists with him”. This indicates the capabilities of the IEC’s nationalist faction and the threat they are posing to the pro-Russian government in Chechnya.
Moreover, in a parallel development, the capabilities of the IEC’s jihadist faction are increasing, especially due to increasing efforts by the global salafi-jihadist movement to link the IEC to their movement. The Salafi-Jihadists consider the North Caucasus region to be an important strategic spot. Since late 2007, they have shown a renewed interest in the region after their earlier role in the area represented by Arab fighters in Chechnya diminished several years ago. This interest takes various forms, most notably a remarkable reactivation in cyberspace, after a lengthy period without such postings on jihadist websites. Jihadist web-forums have circulated numerous items on Chechnya and the North Caucasus since early 2008. An integral part of this internet campaign is an emphasis on translating jihadist materials into Russian, specifically on the aforementioned websites. This activity is significant, as many local North Caucasian jihadis cannot read Arabic.
Another indication of the ongoing effort to link the Caucasian armed groups to the global jihad movement was seen in an exchange of letters between Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Anzor Astemirov (a.k.a. Amir Sayfullah), the late leader of Yarmuk Jama’at in Kabardino-Balkaria and an ideologue of the IEC, who was killed by security forces in March 2010. The letters concerned Astemirov’s translation of al-Maqdisi’s books into Russian. Astemirov also sent al-Maqdisi the Emirate’s ruling against the London-based Prime Minister of the nationalist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI), Ahmed Zakayev, declaring him an apostate. The ruling was approved by al-Maqdisi.
Astemirov also asked al-Maqdisi about a Shari’a ruling on participating in the Olympics. The 2014 Winter Olympics are scheduled to be held in Sochi, a city in present day Krasnodar Krai that was previously home to Muslim Circassians who were driven out from the region with enormous losses by Russian imperial troops in the 19th century. Al-Maqdisi ruled that participation is prohibited. Astemirov’s request for direct advice from jihad ideologues such as al-Maqdisi demonstrates increasing attempts to tie the Caucasian armed groups, which are still driven by local grievances, to the global jihad.
CONCLUSIONS: The evolution of the jihadist faction in the North Caucasus coincide with efforts by al-Qaeda and its affiliates to build a localized jihad by convincing local elements to absorb the Salafi-Jihadist ideology, rather than just allying the movement with local militant groups in various areas. However, the North Caucasus has recently generated its own local jihadists, such as Astemirov and the two Dagestani female suicide bombers who attacked the Moscow Metro on March 28, 2010. Maryam Sharipova and Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, unlike most of the female suicide bombers from the region, were not directly linked to the war-torn situation in Chechnya, but acted for ideological reasons. The adaptation of such a strategy by al-Qaeda and affiliated groups comes in the context of the lessons learned from their experiences in Iraq and Chechnya, most importantly that they lost their local bases as they lost the support of the local public. At the same time, a re-emergence of the nationalist faction which aims to Chechenize the conflict in the North Caucasus, would increase the burden on Russia and the local North Caucasian governments, and extend the geographical space where these groups are active. This means that they will share the security pressure and work more freely. Finally, restoring Chechen national resistance rhetoric could play a significant role in attracting young people from Chechnya itself to the IEC’s nationalist faction.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Murad Batal Al-Shishani is a London-based analyst. He holds an M.A degree in Political Science, specializing in Islamic Movements in the Middle East and the North Caucasus. He is author of the book "Islamic Movement in Chechnya and the Chechen-Russian Conflict 1990-2000, Amman 2001 (in Arabic).
