By Huseyn Aliyev
October 11, 2017, the CACI Analyst
On August 23, for first time in over a year, local authorities performed a counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. Local sources report that security forces killed three suspected Islamist militants, including the head of a local militant jama’at (community) during the operation. The armed confrontation between local security forces and Islamist militants was the eight such incident since the beginning of 2017. The Ingush insurgency has been in steep decline over the past seven years. Therefore, this unexpected rise in conflict-related violence in Ingushetia is a worrying trend for local authorities, which have previously declared repeatedly that the Islamist insurgency in the republic is no longer active.
By Emil Aslan Souleimanov
October 6th, 2016, The CACI Analyst
The North Caucasus insurgency has weakened dramatically in recent years. While Chechnya-based jihadist groups now number a few dozen fighters, jamaats operating in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay have been nearly wrecked. In Ingushetia, a few insurgent groups remain numbering a couple of dozen members. In Dagestan, the epicenter of the regional insurgents, several jamaats have survived and number around a hundred active members. Indicative of the unprecedented weakening of the North Caucasus insurgency is the jihadists’ inability to elect an amir of the Caucasus Emirate: since the liquidation of the last amir Magomed Suleimanov in mid-August 2015, the jihadist resistance has been beheaded as it lacks a formal leadership. Yet has the regional insurgency indeed been defeated?
By Emil Aslan Souleimanov (09/02/2015 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Recent months have seen North Caucasian amirs pledging allegiance to the terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State (ISIS). Many have pointed to this process as a sign of the changing paradigm of the regional resistance, which is being transformed into – or absorbed by – the global jihadist insurgency. But these assumptions can be challenged by a look at the internal dynamics, the distance from key hotbeds of jihadist violence, and the limits of the North Caucasian insurgency. While ISIS may have some impact on the North Caucasian jamaats, it is likely to be rather limited and indirect.
By Natalia Konarzewska (19/08/2015 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The North Caucasus is the Russian Federation’s most economically impoverished region, as well as the most dependent on government revenues. Due to Russia’s dwindling financial situation, federal subsidies for the region are shrinking, which negatively affects welfare and social service expenditures as well as investment projects. Since last year, many state-owned regional companies have gone bankrupt. Fluctuations in government revenues will pressure local governments to increase borrowing from external sources, loans that they will have a hard time paying back. The North Caucasus therefore risks seeing a series of financial defaults.
Contents
Analytical Articles
THE SOUTHERN ENERGY CORRIDOR: A STRATEGIC PRIORITY FOR THE U.S.?, by Mamuka Tsereteli
ELECTION YEAR IN THE EURASIAN UNION AND THE EU'S EXTERNAL ACTION POLICIES, by Gaël Chataignère
MOSCOW STEPS UP PRESSURE ON CHECHNYA'S POWERFUL RULER, by Valeriy Dzutsev
THE CHALLENGES TO GEORGIA'S ENERGY SECTOR, by Ariela Shapiro
Field Reports
INGUSHETIA'S LEADER CLAIMS THE END OF INSURGENCY IN HIS REPUBLIC, by Huseyn Aliyev
GEORGIA FAILS TO OBTAIN VISA-FREE REGIME AT EaP RIGA SUMMIT, by Eka Janashia
ARMENIA'S AND GEORGIA'S PRIME MINISTERS IRON OUT RECENT STRAINS IN BILATERAL RELATIONS, byErik Davtyan
PARTY RESTRUCTURING IN KYRGYZSTAN PRIOR TO 2015 ELECTIONS, by Arslan Sabyrbekov
The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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