KABARDINO-BALKARIA RISKS BECOMING NEW INSURGENCY HOTSPOT
On February 19, three Russian tourists were killed in the mountainous Elbrus area of Kabardino-Balkaria by local Islamist insurgents, with two others escaping with serious injuries. Since Fall 2010, a series of audacious attacks have been carried out by insurgents, claiming the lives of the republic’s mufti Anas Pshikhachev, the prominent Kabardey ethnologist Arsen Tsipinov, and a number of police officers and state officials. These recent events have contributed to making Kabardino-Balkaria one of the major hotspots of the North Caucasian insurgency, along with Dagestan.
BACKGROUND: Until recently, the Northwest Caucasus had been considered rather immune to the manifestations of militant Islamism. Unlike the ethnic autonomous regions of the Northeast Caucasus, i.e. Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya, these tiny republics with less than a million (Kabardino-Balkaria) and half a million (Karachay-Cherkessia) inhabitants, with a sizable share of ethnic Russians, were significantly Europeanized during decades of Soviet rule. Importantly, local societies largely lack the attributes contributing to the swift mobilization in the Northeast Caucasus: the prevalence of highly traditional societies including tribalism, blood feuds, and a strong role for Islam in the public and private spheres.
Yet life in both republics is marked by considerable tension between representatives of Turkic (Karachay, Balkar) and Adyghe (Cherkess, Kabardey, Abaza) groups that does not confine itself only to the nationalist pamphlets of local (pseudo) historians. Economic and political power is concentrated almost entirely in the hands of demographically dominant Kabardians and Karachays in their respective republics, causing permanent discontent among groups that consider themselves discriminated against. Following centuries of forced migrations implemented by Russian authorities in attempts to pacify the region, ethnic groups also clash over certain disputed territories.
As a result, the ethno-nationalist split seemed to be the main, if not single, ideological force in the Northwest Caucasus only a decade ago. Yet the hunt for real and imagined “Wahhabis” in the North Caucasus that started in 1999-2001 and intensified during the desperate Nalchik attack of 2005, led by the first generation of local insurgents, provided for a deepening “Jihadization” of the political opposition. The ongoing process has been fueled by the strong desire among local youth to distance themselves from the Turkic-Adyghe split, put an end to the power of corrupt elites, retaliate against indiscriminate activities of the local police, and establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus.
IMPLICATIONS: The ongoing deterioration of the security situation in Kabardino-Balkaria testifies to the inability of local authorities to really combat terrorism, even though that task should have been the easiest in this particular part of the North Caucasus. Like elsewhere in the region, the brutal and unprofessional efforts of local security forces to rid the country of “Wahhabis” have only contributed to strengthening the Islamist insurgency (see the 09/29/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst).
The main concern of the current president, Arsen Kanokov, and his close circle is widely believed by locals to be making money, and maximizing his control over political and economic power to this end. Following his inauguration in 2005, Kanokov, an ethnic Kabardey, made sure that revenues from the lucrative tourist business in the Elbrus area were channeled to the Kabardeys. His predecessor and fellow Kabardey Valery Kokov had earlier conceded such income to the Balkar minority, and Kanokov’s move further infuriated the Balkars. Corruption is omnipresent in the republic, and positions in the state administration are almost openly sold or delivered to loyal people, while political opposition is reduced to zero. Locals are systematically forced to pay bribes to establish any business.
In this situation, the Islamist militants are regarded by some as the only real opposition to the extremely unpopular regime. Regardless of the authorities’ continuous anti-Salafi rhetorics, a recent survey disclosed that 39 percent of Kabardino-Balkaria’s inhabitants have a rather positive attitude toward Salafism. The nationalist appeal is also important in shaping pro-insurgency sentiments, since traditions of anti-Russian resistance by numerous Adyghe tribes during the 19th century still constitute the cornerstone of Adyghe identity today. For the young generation of nationalist Kabardeys, facing high unemployment rates and virtually no prospects, a feeling of being ethnic kin to the “tough guys of ours” that are not by any means “worse than the Chechens” also plays a role as they are searching for an idea that would provide meaning to their lives. Likewise, in the case of the Karachay-Balkars, the memory of the bloody deportation of 1944 and consequent hardships still persist. The Turkic groups, mostly inhabiting remote mountainous areas of the Greater Caucasus, are highly traditional and generally more prone to mobilization than the more westernized Adyghes concentrated mostly in the lowlands.
Contributing to the anti-regime, anti-Moscow, and to some extent also anti-Russian animosity on the one hand, and to the forging of an idea of Turco-Adyghe solidarity on the other, are the growing anti-Caucasian sentiments in Russia proper, where inhabitants of the North Caucasus are increasingly regarded as second-class citizens. Recent developments boost the motto of local insurgents: “Let’s fight the Russians and their local puppets – they are our real enemies, as we are all Muslims and should not care about ethnicity”.
In this regard, Tsipinov’s assassination is highly emblematic as he advocated the revival of ethnic values among the Adyghe peoples, most notably the Adyghe Habze, the archaic and highly complex principles of customary law and code of etiquette. Tsipinov did not hesitate to term Islam an alien segment of Adyghe identity, and Karachay-Balkars as inferior to the cultivated and autochthonous Adyghe. While the insurgents considered Tsipinov a propagator of jahiliyyah, i.e. pre-Islamic paganism, who also contributed to the further deepening of the Turco-Adyghe divide, the pro-regime mufti was renowned for his bold “anti-Wahhabi” statements. The attacks against the Baksan hydropower plant in July 2010 and more recently against the tourist infrastructure were carried out to deprive the regime of its revenues, and showing whom the republic really belongs to.
Yet the increasingly violent activities of local insurgents have also brought about significant opposition within Kabardino-Balkaria, most notably in liberal urban areas. A group calling itself the “Black hawks” has been established – allegedly by local inhabitants – to fight “Wahhabi terrorism” by their own means, though some observers believe they are an initiative of Russian intelligences services. Most importantly, some Kabardey and Balkar intellectuals have called for the revival of the ancient custom of blood feud, arguing that taking revenge on the relatives of the insurgents would weaken insurgent activities, a measure that has been practiced quite successfully in Chechnya and increasingly also in Ingushetia and Dagestan. In response to the increasingly frequent and lethal insurgent attacks on police outposts, these have been removed altogether, and the authorities are now discussing the launch of special militia units for fighting insurgents.
CONCLUSIONS: The recent increase of Islamist insurgency in Kabardino-Balkaria, an autonomous republic whose Jihadist-related civil unrest has been limited in the regional context, clearly illustrates the overall failure of the anti-terrorist efforts of both local and federal authorities. Not only do the ambitious economic plans of the newly established North Caucasian federal district seem out of touch with reality (for example, Alexander Khloponin’s desire to turn Kabardino-Balkaria and adjacent republics into a tourist paradise), but some areas of the republic have recently fallen under the partial control of the insurgents who have even started to extort money from local businesses and intimidate officials. With its large areas of wooded mountains and gorges, the republic provides perfect terrain for guerilla fighting. Importantly, Kabardino-Balkaria neighbors the predominantly Muslim areas of the Digoron sub-ethnic group of Ossetians, among which radicalization is on the rise due to frequent cases of police discrimination within North Ossetia. Kabardey-Balkar jamaats have been improving their sense of trans-ethnic Muslim solidarity and have consistently strengthened their ties with Digoron Ossetians, thereby establishing a strategic link between the Northwest Caucasus and the key Northeast Caucasian battlefields. This poses a serious danger to the security of the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi and holds the potential to further destabilize neighboring Karachay-Cherkessia, as well as the predominantly Russian areas of Stavropol and Krasnodar. If the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria deteriorates further, Moscow may use the Chechenization model, pitting local “Wahhabis” and “anti-Wahhabis”, who are usually nationalists, against each other, or alternatively intensify the Turco-Adyghe antagonism as a tool to prevent both groups from unification based on Islamism.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Emil Souleimanov is assistant professor at the Department of Russian and East European Studies, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of “An Endless War: The Russian-Chechen Conflict in Perspective“ (Peter Lang, 2007).
