The situation in the Russian North Caucasus has been complex for over 25 years now. A host of economic and social reasons, as well as the relations between this region and the federal authorities, and the mistakes made by both federal and regional politicians, have all contributed to the problem.
Although most experts consider the current situation in Russia relatively stable, it’s to a large extent contingent upon the Islamic factor—particularly upon the actions carried out by Islamic radicals, many of whom pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State.
ISIS has tried to gain control of Russian Islamists. While the insurgency organization didn’t have sufficient resources to intervene in Russia’s domestic affairs, its leaders hoped to bridge that gap with the help of local religious opposition. ISIS is especially active in Kabardino-Balkaria, and, to a lesser extent, in Chechnya. The Caucasus Emirate (CE) has been operating there since 2007 and remains the most prominent local Islamist organization till this day.
The CE started growing closer to ISIS in 2014. That year, its influential field commanders Suleiman Zalabitdinov and Abu Muhammad Agachulsky pledged their allegiance to ISIS via a Skype call. A leading Chechen commander, Aslan Byutykayev, did the same in June 2015 on behalf of all Chechen militants. As many as five Dagestani imams swore loyalty to ISIS last year.
Ordinary people, including students, have also sworn loyalty to ISIS. For example, a law student from the Dagestan University summed up his choice by saying, “the Caliphate is a just society where people will live and be judged according to Allah’s law. Every Muslim seeking to please Allah has to make every effort to bring forth such a society, and, of course, there will be no obstacles to moving there once this society emerges.”
In June 2015, ISIS supporters in Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria published a Russian-language appeal for help from the organization’s main wing. The help was indeed received. Last summer, the official spokesman for ISIS, Abu Mohammad Al-Adnani, announced the formation of a separate branch in the North Caucasus with Abu Muhammad Al-Qadari as its head.
The North Caucasus Islamists’ wish to join ISIS makes some sense. By joining, they would cast themselves not just as regional players but worldwide jihadists. Besides, they are hoping to receive some financial support, just as the Chechen separatists did in the 1990s.
The relations between ISIS and the Caucasus Emirate, however, have been fraught with difficulties. The Emirate has always held itself out as an independent organization. Its head, Aliaskhab Kebekov (aka Ali Abu Muhammad), who assumed the Emirate’s leadership in 2014, realized that his organization is gradually losing its fighters to ISIS despite the organizations’ ideological similarities. Initially, Kebekov asserted that the mujahedeen have a right to choose where they’ll fight for Islam but eventually started calling for their return home. Kebekov urged Emirate members to refrain from suicide bombings and terrorist attacks against the local population, which pointed to his differences with ISIS.
After Kebekov’s death during an anti-terror raid in 2015, Islamic theologian Abu Usman Gimrinsky (aka Magomed Suleimanov) took leadership of the Emirate. He didn’t recognize ISIS’ legitimacy at all, and thought that his fighters shouldn’t leave for the Middle East. He and a few associates were killed in August 2015 after a skirmish with law enforcement officials.
It’s impossible to accurately determine how many Russian citizens are fighting for ISIS. Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service estimated 1,700 fighters in May 2015. By the end of the year, the number had reached 3,000 people. The CIS Anti-Terrorism Center reports that as many as 5,000 Russian “volunteers” have joined the ranks of ISIS. Some sources even believe the number is 7,000.
The data on Caucasus natives fighting for ISIS are more certain. At the start of 2015, 150 Russian Chechens were fighting in the Middle East. Their total numbers, including those that came from Europe, hovered between 1,500 and 2,000 people. The Dubai-based INEGMA Center expert Theodor Karasik alluded to 2,000 Chechens in the Middle East, while Russian political scientist Akhmed Yarlykapov cited the figure 3,000.
By the end of 2014, 85 to 100 fighters from Kabardino-Balkaria fought for ISIS in Syria. As for Dagestan, the republic’s President Ramazan Abdulatipov stated that there are 643 Dagestani jihadists in the Middle East. Some officials in Dagestan’s Interior Ministry put the figure closer to 900, while others say it’s over 2,000.
But one should take all of these numbers with a grain of salt, since they are impossible to check.
Incidentally, the South Caucasus also supplies new recruits to ISIS—about 500 Azerbaijani and 400 Georgian militants, predominantly from the Chechen-dominated Pankisi Gorge region and recently from Adzharia.
The North Caucasian refer to their journey to the Middle East as hijra, alluding to the Prophet Muhammad’s journey from Mecca to Medina, where he moved in the name of Islam in 622 CE. In 2013, even before the creation of ISIS was announced, an organization called Al-Muhajiroun (the hijra participants) was created in Aleppo, Syria. In an effort to weaken opposition at home, North Caucasian politicians unofficially visited their countrymen in the Middle East to try to convince them to stay there. Indeed, Islamist activity and a number of terrorist victims in the North Caucasus fell in 2014 and 2015 as a result of the militants’ influx to the Middle East.
The North Caucasus’ Islamists will never coalesce into one cohesive group. The Islamic State is unlikely to assume full control of the local Islamist opposition, since many of the field commanders will refuse to submit to foreign leadership.
The questions of what the militants will do upon their return home from the Middle East is even more important. They’ve gained significant combat experience while fighting for ISIS and are much more fanatical now. These people can become a powerful force within the Islamist opposition that can destabilize Russia’s southern areas as the situation in that region declines.
