In late July 2011, the Caucasus Emirate’s official media mouthpiece Kavkaz Center announced that the two rival factions within the emirate had reconciled their differences through a Shari’ah court. Aslambek Vadalov and Khusayn Gakayev, as well as other commanders who previously rescinded their bay’at to Doku Umarov, renewed their allegiance. This episode provides further evidence of the decline of Arab fighter influence in the Caucasus jihad, yet paradoxically shows the impact of popular Arab online jihadi shaykhs. It also solidifies Umarov’s pan-Caucasus project as the leading resistance to Russian aggression in contrast to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s claims as the true representatives of the more nationalist-Islamist Chechen struggle.past research [1] on the waning level of Arabs fighting in the Caucasus.

Although the level of influence from Arab fighters in the Caucasus has waned, the connection to the overall global jihadi community has become further cemented. When ruling on the schism, the leading shari’ah official in the Caucasus Emirate, Ali Abu Muhammed al-Dagestani, stated that the opposition faction’s disobedience to Umarov was contrary to Islamic law. This echoes the fatwa released by al-Maqdisi, who is considered the most influential living jihadi theorist, in September 2010. Al-Maqdisi has had a keen interest through his Minbar al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad (The Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad) project in “purifying” the jihad from so-called negative influences and, as a result, has focused on providing advice to the Caucasus Emirate since he believes it provides a good example of how jihad should be waged “cleanly.” Therefore, although the Caucasus Emirate’s connections to al-Qaeda may be scant, al-Maqdisi’s advice and blessings upon Umarov’s leadership, and the way his movement conducts jihad, provides his group with legitimacy from a highly regarded religious scholar, placing the Caucasus Emirate as an important front in the global jihad against tawaghit (tyrants).

Further, the apparent reconciliation between the various factions would be a major blow to the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI), the predecessor to the Caucasus Emirate, which has focused more on Chechnya as a nationalist-Islamist oriented secessionist movement. Twice following the outbreak of the fissures within the Caucasus Emirate – first in October 2010 and most recently in June 2011 – Akhmad Zakayev, the leader of the ChRI in exile following Umarov’s creation of the Caucasus Emirate, announced and later reaffirmed he was resigning as President, dismantling his cabinet and supporting Gakayev as the new leader. The reconciliation between Gakayev’s faction and the Caucasus Emirate, therefore, is not only a repudiation of Zakayev, but also eliminates any possibility that the conflict with Russia will once again be centered on Chechen nationalist and secessionist ideas versus Umarov’s pan-Caucasus Islamic identity. Following the announced détente between the two Caucasus Emirate rivals, Zakayev’s ChRI released a statement in July 2011 condemning them, arguing that they were fomenting fitnah, which strengthens Russian hands in their conflict.

CONCLUSIONS: The reconciliation between Umarov’s Caucasus Emirate and Gakayev’s faction ends a years-long dispute that pitted influential leaders that have played crucial roles in the insurgency against the Russians the past few years. This development sidelines Zakayev and his ChRI leadership in exile. It also further diminishes Arab fighter influence over the Caucasus Emirate, yet boosts the importance of Arab shaykhs from the outside. Most significant, though, is that the Caucasus Emirate can now refocus its conflict with Russia instead of internecine fighting, and expand its sphere of influence in other former Muslim lands that they perceive to be occupied, such as the Volga-Ural region, which the Caucasus Emirate has attempted to reach out to recently in its propaganda. The resolution between the two parties also points to the victory of the global jihadi vision over more nationalist-Islamist claims in the long-running and protracted war with Russia.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Aaron Y. Zelin is a researcher in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University and maintains the website Jihadology.net, a clearinghouse for jihadi primary source material.