Islam, Jamaats and Implications for the North Caucasus – Part Two

Posted on June 15, 2006 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 15, 2006

Many of the military leaders of the North Caucasian jamaats were trained by warlord Ruslan Gelayev in the Pankisi Gorge before he led his guerrilla forces back into Ingushetia and Chechnya in the fall of 2002. Gelayev, like Shamil Basayev, was a graduate of the pan-Caucasian movement and commanded fighters from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) and the Karachai–Cherkessian Republic (KCR) in the 1999 raids on Dagestan. A young fighter named Muslim Atayev emerged as the leader of approximately 30 Kabardino-Balkarians in Gelayev’s command. Shortly after participating in the battle of Galashki in Ingushetia, Atayev was detailed to lead his men back into the KBR to set up a resistance group. Based in the mountains, this group evolved into the Yarmuk Jamaat. The name of the jamaat reflects its military intent, referring to the Yarmuk River near the Golan Heights where an outnumbered army of Muslims inflicted a decisive defeat on the forces of the Byzantine Empire in 636 AD.

Yarmuk Jamaat Founder Muslim Atayev

The Yarmuk Jamaat armed itself through an attack on the Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) headquarters in December 2004. Atayev justified the attack (in which four Kabardin policemen were killed) by accusing the Drug Control Service of being the main distributor for narcotics in the region (Kavkaz Center, December 15, 2004). Basayev visited Atayev in Baksan where future operations were planned. Atayev was eventually killed in a Nalchik gun battle in January 2005.

Shamil Basayev also has deep roots in the pan-Caucasian movement, particularly with his involvement in the military activities of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus in the early 1990s. His raids on Dagestan in 1999 also had a strong pan-Caucasian element, with many of the fighters under his command originating from North Caucasus republics other than Chechnya. It is these contacts that Basayev has exploited successfully in building a centralized command for the region’s disparate resistance groups. Aslan Maskhadov’s successor as president, Sheikh Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, appears to share Basayev’s sentiments, calling for the liberation and unification of the entire Caucasus. Recently, he went so far as to offer Chechnya’s complete support to Georgia’s struggle with what Sadulayev termed “Russia’s terrorist activity and imperial ambitions” (Chechenpress, May 15, 2005).

The Caucasian Jamaats in Action

Russian authorities still claim that the 1999 bombings of Moscow apartment blocks were carried out by a KCR jamaat under the direction of the late Arab mujahideen commander Ibn al-Khattab. In recent years, urban shootouts with members of the KCR’s Jamaat No. 3 have become common. The organization has been accused by security services of directing suicide bombers in Moscow.

In the last two years, the jamaats have engaged in urban warfare in cities across the Caucasus. This fighting is usually of two types, the first being planned actions by insurgents designed to eliminate selected targets and seize arms for further operations. The second arises when federal intelligence or police discover the presence of jamaat members in urban safe houses. In these cases, a crisis typically develops when the insurgents refuse to surrender. Long gun battles have followed in most cases that have exposed a tendency by state security forces to use maximum force, often with mixed results. The inevitable security sweeps and abductions that follow do little to reassure residents of the North Caucasus that Moscow can be called upon to protect the local population.

Jamaats are active elsewhere besides the KBR. In Ingushetia, the local Sharia Jamaat has been active in bombings and attacks on security forces as well as participating in the Basayev-led raid on the Ingushetian city of Nazran in June 2002. In Dagestan, another Sharia Jamaat is engaged in a violent struggle with the republic’s Interior Ministry forces that threatens to rival the conflict in Chechnya. According to Sadulayev, these jamaats, as well as others in the Adygea, Stavropol and Krasnodar regions, pledged their allegiance to him after the death of Aslan Maskhadov (Gazeta Wyborcza, September 9, 2005). Sadulayev himself was amir of the Argun military jamaat before the current Chechen war erupted.

The Raid on Nalchik

The Nalchik raid of October 2005 differed from the previous year’s raid in Nazran in that it was directed and carried out almost exclusively by local militants, rather than by Chechen fighters who needed to be transported to Nazran and back to safe bases in Chechnya. Even Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced that there were no “outside gunmen” present at Nalchik (Pravda.ru, October 16, 2005). The KBR’s minister of culture noted that the militants did not belong to any one ethnic group, suggesting that the attacks were not just an eruption of Balkar dissatisfaction. The raid demonstrated how independent jamaats could mobilize in the “Caucasus Front” envisioned by Aslan Maskhadov, and now pursued by his successor, Sadulayev. KBR President Arsen Kanokov noted that low income and unemployment had “created the soil for religious extremists and other destructive forces to conduct an ideological war against us” (AP, October 14, 2005).

Yet, while the militants were mostly local, their commanders were not. A look at the operational command demonstrates how the Chechen-style command structure works in action. Basayev carried out what he describes as “general operative management.” By accepted rules, the amir responsible for the sector in which the action is to take place assumes operational command (Kavkaz Center, October 15, 2005). In this case, it was Anzor Astemirov (also known as Amir Seifulla). The amirs of other sectors were each given responsibilities under Astemirov’s command. One of those killed in the assault on Nalchik’s FSB headquarters was Ilyas Gorchkhanov, the leader of the Ingush Jamaat. The amirs of Ossetia and Krasnodar regions were also wounded.

After the raid, Astemirov correctly pointed out that despite months of preparation, no one in the local population betrayed the militants. For his part, Russian Presidential Representative Dimitri Kozak was vocal in his criticism of the lack of intelligence available on the Yarmuk Jamaat. In fact, Russia’s advance knowledge of the raid came from the interrogation of a captured militant, Anzor Zhagurazov, who revealed plans for a large-scale attack on Nalchik five days before it happened. A cache of a half ton of explosives was discovered based on his information, and several hundred members of the Russian special forces were sent to Nalchik. Despite this, the militants carried out an assault on government and military targets that lasted several hours and reaped large quantities of captured weapons; at least 40 militants were killed. The attack on Nalchik appears to have been planned to coincide with a similar attack in Dagestan that was prevented by the death of several of its main planners in a Russian operation.

Battle of Uhud

Astemirov compared the raid to the Battle of Uhud, fought in 625 AD by the Muslims of Medina against the Meccans (Kavkaz Center, January 10). The Muslim army of Muhammad suffered a setback that day due to their overconfidence, but eventually regrouped to emerge triumphant. Astemirov also suggested that the anti-Russian jihad must be fought on the home ground of all the Muslims of the North Caucasus.

The militarization of the jamaat movement may yet provide Sadulayev with the power base he needs to assume the role of Imam of the Caucasus. The job of centralizing control will be difficult, and will ultimately expose members of the network. The Chechen leadership, however, realizes that the Kremlin has succeeded in closing Chechnya to the outside world. The conflict with Russia has settled into a war of attrition, which the Chechens cannot possibly win. Without spreading the conflict, their best hope is for a withdrawal of Russian forces, allowing for a civil war with the pro-Moscow forces of Ramzan Kadyrov. A full blown fratricidal struggle would reduce the fighting strength of Chechnya to insignificance, a solution to the “Chechen Problem” that might prove satisfactory in Moscow.

Recent political developments in the Caucasus have reminded many residents of the troubled history of the region’s relations with Russia. As memories surface of the Circassian exodus and Stalin’s deportations, the limited benefits of Russian rule threaten to be overwhelmed by history. Imam Shamyl’s 19th century rebellion is undergoing a revival in popularity. In current conditions, the attraction of a revived Imamate under the direction of Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev may be great enough to make young militants forget that Shamyl’s three decades of rebellion ended in the utter devastation of his followers in Dagestan and Chechnya (as Vladimir Putin has lately taken to reminding citizens of the North Caucasus).

Conclusion

While it is difficult to envision the jamaats as a military threat to the Russian Federation, it may prove impossible for the Kremlin to deal effectively with five insurgencies at once, or to address international questions as to why Russian rule in the region has spun out of control. Bombings and other attacks have spread right into the Stavropol and Krasnodar regions of the Russian Republic, indicating an ever-widening scope of operations for anti-Russian militants.

The Islamic combat jamaat in the North Caucasus is more than a religious phenomenon. Economic and territorial issues are also important factors in the recruitment of young fighters, who otherwise find themselves unemployed and disenfranchised. Last November, President Putin’s envoy, Dimitri Kozak, warned that the proliferation of what he describes as “Islamic Sharia enclaves” in remote areas of the Caucasus would soon immerse the entire region in conflict. This result was inevitable if military measures were taken without addressing state corruption and other social and economic problems. In these conditions, the revival of the dormant pan-Caucasus movement has found a rallying point in Salafist Islam, but one rooted in local tradition with local leaders. Russia’s pre-emptive counter-terrorism policy and repression of Islamic activities outside the realm of state-approved Islamic structures continues to feed the insurgency. The emergence of the “military jamaat” threatens to stretch Russian resources to the limit and turn the North Caucasus into a minefield of anti-Russian resistance.

This article first appeared in the June 15, 2006 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

A Sour Freedom: The Return of Russia’s Guantanamo Bay Prisoners

Posted on June 1, 2006 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 1, 2006

During the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a ready market developed for the seizure and sale of foreign individuals to U.S. forces as suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters. Typically these captives were transferred to the special U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for further investigation. Included in their number were a handful of Russian citizens. All were Muslims who had arrived separately in Afghanistan with various motivations. Several had a history of Islamist activities that had brought them to the attention of Russian authorities in the 1990s. During their stay in Afghanistan some of the Russian prisoners appear to have been integrated into units of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Islamist guerrilla force that took part in the 2001 fighting in Afghanistan on the side of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Imam Airat Vakhitov

The Road to Freedom

On February 28, 2004, seven of the eight Russian detainees were released to Russian custody after nearly two years of negotiations. According to a March 1, 2004, statement by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, the U.S. State Department received “assurances that the individuals will be detained, investigated, and prosecuted, as appropriate, under Russian law.” In a surprise development that angered those in the State Department who believed they had a secure arrangement with Russian authorities, the prisoners were released after a few months of detention and given bus tickets home. Charges of mercenary activities, participating in a criminal gang, and illegally crossing state borders were all dropped. Though freed, the former prisoners began to complain of constant police harassment and an inability to find any kind of work.

The men, who have come to be known as “the Russian Taliban,” included two Balkars from Kabardino-Balkaria (Ruslan Odzhiev and Rasul Kudaev) and five Tatars from Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Tyumen region of Siberia (Ravil Gumarov, Airat Vakhitov, Rustam Akhmarov, Timur Ishmuradov, and Shamil Khadzhiev). Another Tatar, Ravil Mingazov, was not released with the rest and is now the sole Russian citizen held at Guantanamo Bay. Initially the ex-prisoners were allowed to give testimony regarding ill treatment during their U.S. detention.

Legal Remedies

Imam Airat Vakhitov was leader of a Salafist mosque in Tatarstan and came to the attention of Russian security forces by visiting Chechnya in 1998. Vakhitov claims he was kidnapped by IMU fighters during a visit to Tajikistan and eventually sold to U.S. forces in Afghanistan for $5,000. Before his sale to U.S. forces, Vakhitov claims he was drugged and tortured in Afghanistan for seven months in an attempt to force an admission that he was a Russian agent. After a year of imprisonment Mullah Omar (leader of the Afghan Taliban) learned of the torture of fellow Muslims and ordered their release. Vakhitov was instead transferred to a prison near Kandahar where he remained until U.S. security services began to scour Afghanistan for al-Qaeda members.

Apparently quick on his feet, Vakhitov describes being asked at Kandahar by CIA and FBI agents regarding the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Vakhitov says he promised to tell his captors where he had seen bin Laden in exchange for much-needed blankets and warm food. After receiving coffee, pizza, and two blankets, Vakhitov told his inquisitors that he had seen bin Laden on the cover of Time magazine. In return Vakhitov alleges he was punched in the face, returned to prison for another six months, and eventually flown to Cuba, blindfolded and chained (Pravda, June 28, 2005). During his two-year detention at Guantanamo, the imam claims that prisoners were gassed, tortured, and forced to witness the desecration of the Koran on a regular basis. He is suing to clear his name of all allegations of terrorist activity with the help of Reprieve, a human rights NGO.

In a press interview announcing his lawsuit against the United States, Vakhitov complained of beatings, the use of tear gas, sleep deprivation, and various humiliations. Gumarov and Ishmuradov have also joined the suit, with Ishmuradov declaring, “I am very angry at Americans for what they did to me — I have traces of their tortures on my body” (Izvestiya, April 1, 2005). Rasul Kudaev, who now suffers from heart and liver disorders and still carries a bullet lodged in his spine that limits his mobility, said guards responded to his defiance with beatings and tear gas. The family of Ruslan Odzhiev claims that he is suffering organ failure as a result of beatings at the U.S. detention facility and is kept alive only through a steady regimen of pills. Federal police frequently search Odzhiev’s home, which he shares with his mother.

Rustam Akhmarov was allowed to travel to London in November 2005 to describe his experiences to an Amnesty International conference on conditions in Guantanamo Bay. Akhmarov said that he and his family were kept under constant surveillance in Russia after his release, and he alleged that during his detention at Guantanamo Bay he and other men were given forced injections and later developed Hepatitis B (Amnesty International, November 20, 2005).

Return to Jihad?

Only two weeks after announcing their participation in the lawsuit, Ishmuradov and Gumarov were arrested (together with a third man) and charged with bombing a natural gas pipeline in Tatarstan on January 8, 2005. The small explosion caused little damage, harmed no one, and occurred close to the local FSB headquarters. The initial investigation by the Interior Ministry focused on mechanical failure, but the FSB took control of the investigation and declared sabotage to be the cause (Kommersant, April 19, 2005). During their trial the three men complained that torture had been used to elicit confessions.

The three were released in September 2005 after a jury trial handed down an acquittal — an unusual result for a Russian terrorist prosecution. The Russian Supreme Court overturned the ruling and ordered a new trial. Ishmuradov had apparently seen the writing on the wall and was arrested trying to cross the border into Ukraine. On May 12, 2006, a new trial ended with convictions and sentences of between 11 and 15 years for the three men.

Both Airat Vakhitov and Rustam Akhmarov were arrested in August 2005 on suspicion of involvement in a number of terrorist attacks. Amnesty International organized an immediate campaign calling for their release, which occurred a week later. At a press conference, Vakhitov claimed to have learned from an unnamed U.S. military intelligence officer (confirmed by Russia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office) that the original terms of his release from Guantanamo Bay called for a prison sentence in Russia of 15 years, together with round-the-clock access for CIA and FBI investigators (Prima News, September 13, 2005).

Photos of Rasul Kudaev before and after two months’ detention in Russia.

Despite his infirmities, Rasul Kudaev was subjected to frequent detentions and beatings by police after his return to Kabardino-Balkaria. In mid-August, 2005, he was abducted by masked men in camouflage uniforms, but was released several days later after his mother arranged the intervention of lawyers from the Reprieve NGO (Caucasian Knot, August 17, 2005). Kudaev, like fellow Balkar Ruslan Odzhiev, was already under police suspicion before his detention by the Americans as a result of his religious studies in Saudi Arabia and his association with local jama’ats in Kabardino-Balkaria.

Kudaev was again arrested shortly after the October 2005 insurrection in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. His lawyer was dismissed from the case after she complained that her client was being tortured in prison. (Three other Nalchik lawyers were also barred from defending their clients after alleging torture.) Before and after photos of Kudaev released by his lawyer following two months of detention showed extensive bruising and swelling of the face (RFE/RL, December 6, 2005). After the photos appeared in the press Kudaev disappeared; his lawyer eventually located him in an FSB prison in Pyatigorsk. Russian authorities cite Kudaev’s confession as proof of his involvement in the attacks, although friends and family point out that his physical condition would preclude any such involvement. Kudaev’s mother fears for his life, since prison officials will not accept delivery of his medicines.

Conclusion

The plight of the “Russian Taliban” has attracted the attention of a number of human rights NGOs, including Memorial, Amnesty International, Justice in Exile, and Reprieve. The prisoners’ initial release after their return to Russia took many by surprise, including the U.S. State Department. There seemed little reason for this unlikely turn of events, but the release may well have been a public display of magnanimity at a time when Moscow was desperately seeking the release of two Russian agents held in Qatar for the assassination of former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbaev. With the assassins now back in Russia as a result of a pardon by the emir of Qatar, there is little to prevent the incarceration of these individuals on new charges as part of the Kremlin’s crackdown on known or suspected Islamist militants. With their temporary usefulness as pawns in Russia’s foreign relations at an end, the Russian Taliban face a dark and uncertain future.

This article first appeared in the June 1, 2006 issue of the Chechnya Weekly.

Radical Ukrainian Nationalism and the War in Chechnya

Posted on March 30, 2006 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

North Caucasus Analysis

March 30, 2006

On March 18 Russia’s Prosecutor General announced the launch of a criminal case involving the participation of a number of Ukraine’s leading radical nationalists as mercenaries in the war in Chechnya. All those charged, including leading ultra-nationalists Dimitro Korchinski and the late Anatoli Lupinos, were members of the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian People’s Self Defense Organization (UNA-UNSO). The UNA-UNSO members are alleged to have fought alongside Chechen forces during combat actions in 2000-2001. The Russian Security Service (FSB) is running an ongoing investigation in Chechnya (Itar-Tass, March 18; Interfax, March 18).

UNA-UNSO Fighters in the Field

The UNA-UNSO

The UNA-UNSO has its origins in the turbulent days of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The UNSO was created as a paramilitary “patriotic” organization intended to defend the nationalist ideals of the UNA and oppose “anti-Ukrainian separatist movements,” especially in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine (both home to a large ethnic Russian population). UNSO street fighters quickly gained attention by military-style marches and attacks on pro-Russian political meetings throughout Ukraine.

The movement’s literature often refers to the Middle Ages, when Kiev rather than Moscow was the cultural and political centre of the Slavic world. The power base of the UNA-UNSO is in western Ukraine, the traditional home of anti-Russian nationalism that took its most virulent form in the formation of a Ukrainian SS division that fought Soviet troops in World War II. In public rallies UNSO members don black uniforms under their banner of a black cross on a red field.

Although UNSO members were sent to Lithuania and Moldova’s Transnistria region in the early 1990s, significant UNSO military operations began with the dispatch of a small group of fighters to Abkhazia to defend Georgian sovereignty in the summer of 1993. Under the command of ex-Soviet officer Valery Bobrovich, UNSO’s “Argo” squad of roughly 150 men found themselves in the thick of the fighting. Russian and Ukrainian security forces declared that UNSO members were acting as mercenaries.

As war clouds gathered over Chechnya in 1994, UNA-UNSO leaders Anatoli Lupinos and Dimitro Korchinski began to lead Ukrainian delegations to Grozny to meet with Chechen leaders. This was followed in 1995 by the arrival of UNSO fighters organized as the “Viking Brigade” under the command of Aleksandr Muzychko, though their numbers (about 200 men) never approached brigade size. Besides fighting in the battle for Grozny some UNSO members (veterans of the Soviet Army) were employed as instructors. Their contribution to the struggle for independence (including 10 KIAs) was acknowledged with the issue of Chechen decorations after the war. While the Ukrainian government claimed that it opposed the participation of Ukrainian nationals in Russia’s “internal affair” it proved unable or unwilling to prevent it.

UNA-UNSO Rally

UNSO members have also been active in the anti-Lukashenko opposition movement in Belarus, participating in demonstrations and riots. In 2000-2001 the UNA-UNSO was prominent in opposition to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, who was under suspicion of ordering the death of a leading Ukrainian journalist.

The UNA’s political program appears to an outsider to be full of contradictions. Despite close ties to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and a general view that Muslims (“the Turks”) are an anti-Slavic threat, the movement supports Chechnya’s Islamic resistance. While supporting the separatist Chechens, the UNA strongly opposes any sign of separatist sentiment amongst Ukraine’s Crimean Tatars. Despite the UNA’s participation in Ukrainian elections, the party maintains an anti-democratic stance, agitating instead for direct presidential rule. Like many populist-based movements, UNA-UNSO aims are often dependent upon the political winds or even the composition of a speaker’s audience.

Ukrainians in the Current Chechen Conflict

According to Russian charges, UNA-UNSO members were active in Chechnya’s Kurchaloi, Vedeno and Nozhai-Yurt districts during 1999-2000. The official UNA position was that the movement would not take part in military operations during this second war, but would assist the separatist government by creating Chechen information centers. Pressure was much stronger this time from the Ukrainian government to keep Ukrainians out of the conflict, and the Foreign Ministry promised that any would-be volunteers would be arrested. Korchinski confirmed the presence of UNSO members in Chechnya at a Kiev rally in March 2000, but complained that the cost of transporting more volunteers had become prohibitive (Itar-Tass, March 24, 2000). As recently as March 2005, Ramzan Kadyrov (leader of Chechnya’s pro-Russian government) denounced the continued presence of Ukrainian “mercenaries” in Chechnya, but did not provide any details (Strana.ru, March 28, 2005).

In December 2001, Russian Communist Duma deputy Viktor Ilyukhin alleged that Ukraine’s nationalist groups were helping Osama bin Laden organize on Ukrainian territory while the Ukraine government supplied Chechen rebels with weapons and other military equipment (Interfax, December 10, 2001). No evidence was presented to substantiate these claims. At the same time, the trial of flamboyant but inept Chechen warlord Salman Raduev heard evidence that 20 Ukrainian nationalists were active participants in the warlord’s terrorist activities in 1997-98 (RIA Novosti, November 30, 2001).

Less credible were reports from Russian military sources regarding Ukrainian women fighting in the Chechen front line. Soon after the second Chechen war began in 1999 Russian accounts began to provide details of a Ukrainian unit of ski-borne women athletes/snipers fighting on the Chechen side. Known as “the White Tights,” these elusive fighters were at other times described as Latvians or Estonians. This bit of battlefield mythology was a survival from the 1994-1996 Chechen war.

In November 2002 the UNA-UNSO organized rallies at three Russian consulates in the Ukraine to protest the storming of Moscow’s Nord-Est theater where Chechen militants had organized a mass hostage taking. During the crisis UNA-UNSO made a public appeal to the militants to release the Ukrainian nationals, reminding them of UNSO support in the first Chechen war. The appeal was ignored and a number of Ukrainian hostages were killed when Russian special forces used gas to immobilize the militants.

Conclusion

UNA-UNSO might be best characterized as an influential fringe movement. Its high visibility belies its limited numbers, with a membership of roughly 8,000, of which only a fraction are involved in UNSO paramilitary activities. Under its present leader Andrei Shkil, the UNA-UNSO continues with a provocative political agenda. Efforts to make inroads in the Ukrainian armed forces have been largely unsuccessful. In late 2004 the movement’s leaders issued an appeal to Ukrainian troops serving in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition to “‘turn your bayonets against U.S. troops and join the rebels” (UPI, November 12, 2004). The movement is frequently accused of pursuing anti-Semitic and fascist ideologies.

The timing of the Russian charges, which are unlikely to result in the extradition of Korchinski or his associates, is probably related to the elections in Ukraine, where the UNA-UNSO forms part of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s bloc of political support. Tymoshenko is also a populist politician, and has cited inclusiveness as the reason for including radical nationalist organizations in her coalition, despite heavy criticism.

The Kremlin is disturbed by Tymoshenko’s promise to renegotiate the natural gas deal made with Russia last January. If the charges were an attempt to embarrass Tymoshenko through renewing the controversy over her ties to UNA-UNSO, they appear to have had little effect. Tymoshenko’s party appears to have emerged from the elections stronger than ever. As for Russia’s charges of mercenary activities in the ultra-nationalist movement, the Ukrainian government has repeatedly declined to investigate on the grounds that such charges are too difficult to substantiate. Dimitro Korchinski now leads his own nationalist party, Bratstvo (Brotherhood), and remains well-connected in Ukraine’s political establishment. As Tymoshenko appears ready to translate last week’s election results into a coalition government, it seems unlikely that the Ukrainian government’s remarkable toleration of UNA-UNSO activities will change anytime soon.

Distant Relations: Hamas and the Mujahideen of Chechnya

Posted on February 23, 2006 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

February 23, 2006

In a bold attempt to reassert Russian influence in the Middle East, Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued an invitation for leaders of the Palestinian Hamas movement to visit Moscow in early March. The meetings will mark a break with the rest of the “Quartet” of Middle-East peace negotiators (the United States, the United Nations and the European Union), who, together with Israel, are calling for Hamas to refute its declared intention of destroying Israel. Further alarming Israel, the head of the Russian General Staff mentioned the possibility of arms sales to Hamas, although Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov soon added that such sales would be made only with Israeli approval. The Soviet Union had a strong tradition of supporting left-wing Palestinian independence movements, and Putin’s latest gambit appears to be part of Russia’s continuing attempt to reclaim an influential role in parts of the Islamic world.

Israel’s “Evidence” of Hamas-Chechen Collaboration

Russia’s relationship with Hamas involves policy contradictions for both parties. Hamas has given verbal support to Islamist movements throughout the world. On the other hand, the Kremlin has consistently warned of a vast Islamist conspiracy to create a new Caliphate since the second Russian-Chechen war began in 1999. After 9/11 Moscow began to complain of al-Qaeda infiltration in the North Caucasus, and has characterized the Chechen resistance as a group of Osama bin Laden-influenced radical Islamists. Israel was thus taken by surprise by Putin’s invitation to the Hamas Islamists, and has responded with an effort to convince the Kremlin that Hamas is closely tied to the Chechen mujahideen.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry is adamant that the Hamas visit will be used to persuade the Palestinian Islamists to reform their mandate with regard to the existence of Israel. In response to Israeli charges that the meetings contradict Russia’s condemnation of “Wahhabism” (the Russian government’s term for Islamism) Russian diplomats point to their record in Chechnya as proof that Moscow does not support Islamism or the terrorist methods of groups like Hamas.

Partners in Jihad? The Evidence

A pamphlet issued by Israel’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) alleging common cause between Hamas and the Chechen independence movement is being widely distributed by the Israeli government through its foreign missions. Directed specifically at the Kremlin, the pamphlet relies on material first posted to the Center’s website in September 2004.

This material gained little attention when it was first posted, for reasons that seem rather clear. Rather than establishing proof of collaboration between Hamas and the Chechens, the “evidence” consists solely of computer graphics found on discs seized in raids on Hamas-related facilities. The digitized “posters” contained on the CDs include images of Shaykh Yassin, Osama bin Laden, Shamyl Basayev and the late Saudi mujahid, Ibn al-Khattab. The only other evidence is a confiscated copy of a CD called “Russian Hell in the Year 2000,” a graphic account of early mujahideen activities early in the latest Russian-Chechen war that has been available for order from the internet for the past six years.

The Mujahideen and the Intifada

The Chechen resistance has generally had little to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in their public statements, save for a brief period in 2000. As the second Palestinian intifada broke out in the Fall of 2000, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev (then leader of the Mujahideen Military Command Council – MMCC) turned his attention to the holy city of Jerusalem. Apparently incensed by Israel’s repression of the revolt, Basayev announced that 150 mujahideen were ready to depart from Chechnya to launch a jihad in Palestine if transport through neighboring Muslim countries could be obtained (Qoqaz.com, October 11, 2000). An accompanying statement issued by the MMCC pointed out that the Russian Army also “had Jews in military ranks both as soldiers and engineers” (Qoqaz.com, October 11, 2000). It was further decided to deliver $1,000 to the family of each of the Palestinian “martyrs” (Kavkaz.com, October 17, 2000; There is no record of any such payment being made.) Another statement from the MMCC on international Muslim reaction to the outbreak of the intifada seemed to reflect Chechen dissatisfaction with the Islamic world’s lack of material support for their own cause:

Palestine is surrounded by Muslim countries who lavishly spend billions on their military. They have the latest generation armored fighting vehicles and state-of-the-art fighter jets but not one bullet have they fired in defense of the Muslims (Azzam Publications, October 9, 2000).

Much of the language used in the current Israeli appeal to Moscow is oddly similar to that used by the Kremlin after hearing of Basayev’s intentions. At the time Russian government representatives spoke of an international conspiracy of Islamists that threatened the entire “democratic” world. Basayev continued to insist that his offer was sincere and feasible, though the entire mission seemed quite improbable:

The Shari’a requires us to assist those Muslims who are struggling to free the sacred places of Islam—the city of al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the al-Aqsa Mosque. Those belong to all Muslims, regardless of their nation or ethnic group. It is a clear duty of all Muslims to help the Palestinians (Kavkaz.com, October 19, 2000).

Ultimately, Russian military pressure vanquished Basayev’s dreams of a Chechen-led liberation of Jerusalem, and neither mujahideen nor money left Chechnya.

Conclusion

It is difficult to draw evidence of a sinister conspiracy from a graphic artist’s juxtaposition of images of Hamas, al-Qaeda and Chechen leaders on a handful of posters. They may reveal a certain sympathy among some Palestinians for the Chechen insurgency, but they are not proof of collaboration. Of the many Arabs who have passed through the ranks of the Chechen mujahideen, few have been Palestinian. Young Palestinians seeking jihad do not need to travel. Arab financial aid to the Chechen struggle has always been centered in the wealthy Gulf States rather than impoverished Palestine.

The ITIC document declares that Hamas supports a “radical jihad agenda” in Russia. The reality is that Palestine has done little to aid the Chechen cause while the Chechens themselves have proven justifiably wary of groups such as Hamas, which appear ready to abandon the international aspects of jihad when their own interests are at stake. In the end the Chechens are remote non-Arab Muslims whose cause will never resonate with Palestinians in the same way as the ongoing insurgency in Iraq (a neighbor and a traditional center of Sunni Islam and Arab culture).

In mid-February of this year, another Hamas delegation made an official visit to Ankara, the capital of Israel’s strategic ally, Turkey. In like fashion to the Russian controversy, outraged Israeli politicians pointed to a Turkish double standard by asking what Ankara’s reaction would be if Israel invited a delegation of Kurdish separatists to Jerusalem. Turkish officials claim that the talks were also intended to move Hamas’ position on Israel closer to that suggested by the “Quartet” while urging Israel to recognize the results of the Palestinian election “and move away from violence” (Zaman, February 18, 2006).

Like raising the issue of the Kurdish “PKK terrorists” with Ankara, the recycled evidence of the ITIC is clearly designed to embarrass the Kremlin. In this sense it may be successful, but it cannot be taken as serious evidence of “terrorist cooperation” between Hamas and Chechnya’s mujahideen.

This article first appeared in North Caucasus Analysis 7(8), February 23 2006

Crescent under the Cross: Shamyl Basayev’s Orthodox Enemy

Posted on January 26, 2006 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

January 26, 2006

There is little left of the Orthodox Church establishment in Chechnya. Most of Chechnya’s ethnic Russian Christian minority fled in the early 1990s during the creation of Dzhokar Dudayev’s independent Chechen state. The onset of war in 1994 found only the aged and the impoverished remaining of Grozny’s Orthodox population, most of whom suffered greatly in the Russian bombing raids. Grozny’s Church of the Archangel Mikhail, once a symbol of Orthodoxy’s triumph in the Caucasus, is slowly being restored after its destruction by the Russian military in 1995. Reduced to a shell, its congregation consists today of a few hundred aged and hungry pensioners.

Church of the Archangel Mikhail (Grozny)

Yet Chechen warlord Shamyl Basayev announced the intention of the “Majlis of the Caucasian Front” to eliminate the “extremist activities” of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus until the end of the war. In an interview conducted January 9, 2006, Basayev described the church’s leaders as ‘satanists” and accused its clergy of being eager tools of Russian intelligence services (Kavkaz Center, January 9, 2006). The Orthodox Church is finished in Chechnya, but its continuing support for military action in the republic and its efforts at converting Muslims elsewhere in the Caucasus have brought it into conflict with the leadership of the Chechen insurgency.

The Church Militant

The very emblem of the Orthodox Church, a cross surmounting an Islamic crescent, is a reminder to Russian Muslims that they are a people of conquest, brought into the Russian empire by the force of a united religious and political regime. The renewal of close ties between the church and the post-Soviet Kremlin alarms many Muslims and has been a source of discontent with Muslim conscripts of the Russian army. The leader of the Orthodox Church is Patriarch Alexy II “of Moscow and All Russia,” who has been vocal in his support of the war against “international terrorism” in Chechnya. The Church’s support of the Kremlin has also come with calls for state assistance in restraining the activities of foreign missionaries and the growing threat of “un-Russian” evangelical Protestantism to the Orthodox establishment.

The Orthodox Cross

In scenes reminiscent of Tsarist times, long-bearded Russian chaplains hold field services for Russian soldiers, exhorting them to victory over the Muslims before entering battle. Elaborate ceremonies are held in Moscow in which the Patriarch and his bishops confer religious medals to Russian officers for their work in Chechnya. A year into the present Chechen war the Patriarch presented Russian President Vladimir Putin with an icon of Russia’s 13th century hero, Alexander Nevsky, with the hope that the Orthodox saint would become the protector of the President. Alexy speaks of the “unification of the state and the church, the unity (that was) forcibly interrupted by the tragic events of the twentieth century” (Prime-Tass, August 1, 2003).

Russia’s leading political figures can be found as speakers at Orthodox congresses, praising the growing integration of church and government. The Church is especially close to the foreign ministry of Igor Ivanov and supports the reintegration of independent Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and their large Orthodox populations into the Russian Federation. Ethnic Chechens in Kazakhstan have angrily accused the Orthodox Church there (which is under the control of the Moscow Patriarch) of recruiting ethnic Russians to fight in Chechnya.

A certain amount of Orthodox support for the Chechen war has its origins in the chaotic inter-war period of 1996 to 1999, when Orthodox clergy were frequent victims of violence or kidnapping gangs. Orthodox priests were at the time accused of running a tax-free tobacco and alcohol racket in Chechnya. Russia claims that the Chechen representative in London, Akhmad Zakaev, was involved in the kidnapping and murder of Orthodox clergy, although a British court did not find the accusations credible (particularly after one of his alleged victims was produced alive).

Martyrs of an Orthodox Crusade?

In 2004 the Church bowed to popular pressure and outspoken members of its own clergy by canonizing a young Russian soldier killed in Chechnya. The new saint was Yevgeny Rodionov, a 19-year-old Russian foot-soldier who was captured and beheaded by Ruslan Khaikharov in May 1996. The soldier’s mother, like so many others, went to Chechnya to search for her son’s remains. According to her, she had several meetings with Khaikharov, who revealed that he had killed Rodionov because he refused to convert to Islam. With Khaikharov killed in a Chechen feud soon after, the story remained uncorroborated (and there are many details that make little sense), but this did not prevent the soldier’s grave in Russia from becoming a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox believers. When the church hierarchy declined to canonize the young “martyr,” it came under immense popular pressure from its membership, many of whom claimed that miracles were commonly worked at Rodionov’s grave or that his icons secreted myrrh. There are now several other ‘soldier-martyrs” being considered for canonization.

Basayev has warned in the past that he considered Russian Orthodox churches (with the “defeated Islamic crescent under their crosses”) as legitimate targets of his Riyadus Salihiin Brigade of Martyrs. Two years ago Basayev identified the church’s leadership as members of Russia’s two principal intelligence agencies, the FSB (former KGB) and the GRU (military intelligence), and accused them of taking an active part in “the genocide of the Chechen people” (Kavkaz Center, April, 2004). In Russia itself, accusations of Church collaboration with the KGB date back to Soviet times and are a major factor in the growth of alternative forms of Christianity within Russia.

Since the Beslan massacre the Bishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz has been active in encouraging the conversion of North Ossetian Muslims to the Orthodox faith. Basayev must take some responsibility for this as the orchestrator of the terrorist attack that brought repression of those who practice both official and unofficial Islam in North Ossetia (where Orthodox Christians form the majority). Fear of retaliation for the Beslan crime has led to acceptance of the Bishop’s message by Muslims whose adherence to the faith is not as strong as fear for themselves and their families.

Conclusion

Despite the threats, Basayev has not yet targeted establishments of the Orthodox Russian church and is unlikely to do so as long as he adheres to a focus on military rather than terrorist activities currently promoted by the Chechen rebel leadership. Tied to his remarks in the same interview about a renewed Imamate in the North Caucasus, Basayev’s verbal attacks on the Church seem to represent an attempt to define the Chechen struggle in religious terms quite different from the parameters used during the presidency of the late Aslan Maskhadov. The Orthodox Church has acted in a similar fashion, helping to redefine a war against “terrorists” into a war against Islam.

The new Chechen president, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, is committed to creating an Islamic state in Chechnya. Basayev suggests that Sadulayev is already “virtually the Imam of the whole Caucasus,” and that a congress will be held this spring to consider the proclamation of Sadulayev as Imam (political/religious leader, in this sense). With Basayev’s encouragement, Abdul-Khalim shows every sign of assuming the mantle of Shaykh Mansur and Imam Shamyl to unify the Islamic opposition to Russian rule in the Caucasus. Basayev’s remarks on the growing symbiosis of the Orthodox church, the Kremlin and Russian security services are meant to remind Russia’s Muslims that Islam presents the only alternative to permanent subservience in a Christian state.

This article first appeared in North Caucasus Analysis 7(4), January 26, 2006

Dokku Umarov: The Next in Line

Posted on January 6, 2006 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

January 6, 2006

While warlord Shamyl Basayev dominates the headlines of the Chechen conflict, a lesser-known guerrilla leader has worked his way into a crucial position in the Chechen leadership. Dokku Umarov was appointed vice-president in the new administration of President Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev in June 2005. A native of southwestern Chechnya, the 40-year-old Emir has already been entrusted with the command of several fronts beyond his original post in the southwestern sector. Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel noted as recently as last July that the northern district “is controlled by Umarov.”

Dokku Umarov

Background

A veteran of the 1994-96 war, Umarov served as security minister in Aslan Maskhadov’s postwar government. Umarov began the current war in 1999 as a field commander working closely with warlord Ruslan Gelayev. After the dual disasters of the evacuation of Grozny and the battle of Komsomolskoe in early 2000, Umarov and Gelayev crossed the mountains into the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia, where they rebuilt their commands. Georgian intelligence reported Umarov leading 130-150 fighters in the Gorge before his return to Chechnya in the summer of 2002 (Civil Georgia, January 20, 2003). Gelayev gave Umarov several Strela missiles, which Umarov’s forces used to good effect against Russian helicopters in the fighting around Shatoi in 2003 (Chechenpress, December 4, 2002).

Gelayev was killed in February 2004 after a disastrous attempt to lead a group of fighters over the mountains of Dagestan into Georgia. After Gelayev’s death, many of his men joined Umarov’s command. Russian security services created a scenario based on the alleged testimony of a prisoner (Baudi Khadzhiev) in which Umarov urged Gelayev to undertake an operation in Dagestan that he knew would be fatal in order to take over Gelayev’s command. The allegation was part of a long tradition of Russian reports about feuding commanders and dissension in the Chechen ranks. Gelayev’s family was quick to point out that their clan and the Umarov family are closely related (an important consideration in clan-conscious Chechnya).

In early February of this year, Russian security suggested that Umarov and Basayev were arranging a meeting of Chechen and Arab field commanders in Grozny to mark the one-year anniversary of Gelayev’s death (Vremya no. 16, February 2, 2005). Later in the month Maj.-Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian command in the North Caucasus, claimed that Russian special forces had destroyed three units of Umarov’s command on their way to Azerbaijan to wipe out Gelayev’s family at a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Gelayev’s death. The family’s alleged declaration of blood vengeance against Umarov provided the motive. The details of this unlikely plot came from the interrogation of a mortally wounded Chechen (RIA Novosti, February 25, 2005). Several Ingush clans have also been reported as having declared blood vengeance against Umarov as a result of deaths suffered in the Nazran operation of 2004.

Like most Chechen field commanders, Umarov has been declared dead on several occasions. In the last year Russian forces have intensified their efforts to eliminate him. In January 2005, he was reported killed in a gun battle with Russian commandos near the Georgian border. In March, Umarov was reported as having been seriously wounded by a spetsnaz assassination team. After stepping on a landmine sometime later, Umarov was reported to have lost a leg, but was only injured. In April, Russian Special Forces destroyed a small guerrilla unit in a seven–hour battle in Grozny after receiving intelligence that Umarov was with them, but he was not found among the dead.

Umarov struck back in an attack on Roshni-Chu in August, but in September the Russian Interior Ministry declared victory over Umarov’s fighters, finding Umarov’s “grave” in the process. In October, Umarov was again reported dead in the raid on Nalchik. In a new tactic designed to put pressure on resistance leaders, masked men in uniform abducted Umarov’s father, brother, wife and baby. Umarov believes those responsible are members of the “Oil Regiment,” a notorious loyalist unit better known for kidnappings than its nominal mission of guarding pipelines.

Relations with Basayev

Chechen Duma Deputy Ruslan Yamadaev suggests that Umarov is currently part of Basayev’s “terrorist wing” of the Chechen resistance, but Umarov distanced himself from Basayev after the latter claimed responsibility for the Beslan outrage (Interfax, March 9, 2005). Only a few months earlier, Umarov had played a leading role with Basayev in organizing the military assault on Nazran in Ingushetia (June 21-22, 2004). Umarov firmly refuted the value of terrorist attacks such as Beslan: “In the eyes of the resistance such operations have no legitimacy,” he said. “We ourselves were horrified by what they did in Beslan” (RFE/RL, July 28, 2005). During the crisis Umarov was repeatedly identified by security services as the leader of the Beslan hostage-takers, a claim that has never been substantiated in any fashion. Umarov emphasized the military nature of his own war: “Our targets—these are the Russian occupation forces, their bases, command HQ’s, and also their armed servicemen from the numbers of local collaborationists, who pursue and who kill peaceful Muslims. We will attack, where we think it’s necessary. Civil objects and innocent civilians are not our targets” (Kavkaz Centre, July 1, 2004).

In May 2005, Maj. Gen. Shabalkin accused Umarov of joining warlord Shamyl Basayev and President Sadulayev in planning a suicide truck-bombing in Grozny. The trio were also said to be planning large-scale civilian massacres in several towns of the North Caucasus by using cyanide “in highly populated areas, key installations and in reservoirs.” A Jordanian emissary of both al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood allegedly provided the cyanide. Proof of the plot was provided in the form of a photo of a Russian in a white lab-coat holding a vial of clear liquid, identified as cyanide. The strategic advantage the Chechen leadership might hope to gain through committing such outrageous atrocities remains unexplained. The allegations came at the same time Sadulayev was trying in his public statements to distance the resistance from terrorist methods.

Four days after Shabalkin made these allegations, Umarov responded by promising large-scale military activities within Russia before the end of the year. This promise seems to have been fulfilled by the October raid in Nalchik, in which Umarov played a leading role (Chechenpress, May 9, 2005).

Conclusion

Umarov is one of the last veteran commanders from the 1994-96 Chechen-Russian war still alive and active in the fighting. He bears the scars and limp of multiple wounds, but his commitment to the conflict remains inflexible. He regards death in battle as an inevitability, and has publicly expressed his hope that those Chechen men who have not fully participated in the war “will all burn in the fire of Hell!” Although Umarov admits he has grown much closer to Islam during the last decade of conflict, he is openly scornful of suggestions that he is a “Wahhabi” or radical Islamist: “I have a whole [military] front,” he said. “I go along that front and I don’t see people fighting to bring the world Wahhabism or terror” (RFE/RL, July 28, 2005). It is unlikely that Umarov’s new role as vice-president will interfere with his ongoing military operations. These days there is not a great deal of paperwork to do in the resistance government. Nevertheless, the appointment was hardly symbolic, considering the record of three successive violent deaths of Chechen presidents (four including the Russian-backed presidency of Akhmad Kadyrov). In the volatile and dangerous world of Chechen politics, Dokku Umarov now stands next in line for the leadership of the Chechen resistance, barring renewed aspirations for this role by Shamyl Basayev.

This article first appeared in North Caucasus Analysis 7(1), January 6, 2006

Upheaval in Nalchik: New Directions in the Chechen Insurgency

Posted on November 3, 2005 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

November 3, 2005

When Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev succeeded the late Aslan Maskhadov as the leader of the Chechen resistance, he was initially described by Russian sources as an Arab and a representative of al-Qaeda. Even after it was shown that the new President was a Chechen, many observers suggested that the presidency of the Islamic scholar would function merely as a rubber-stamp for the terrorist ambitions of warlord Shamil Basayev, Arab fighter Abu Hafs and others. Contrary to these expectations, the young President has moved the Chechen resistance away from terrorism and any potential association with al-Qaeda. Military operations are the order of the day, and expansion of the conflict is the long-term strategy. While Maskhadov was never able to assert complete control over extremist factions in the resistance, the raid on Nalchik (capital of Kabardino-Balkaria) suggests that Sadulayev is ready to pursue a unified military solution to the Chechen conflict (unless Russia offers terms for peace). Recent events also demonstrate the growing influence of Chechen field commanders like Doku Umarov, who have respectable military records relatively untainted by charges of terrorism.

Urban Combat during the Nalchik Raid

The Nalchik Raid

As Basayev admits, the Nalchik raid was, in some ways, a botched job. As early as October 8, a captured militant informed police that a large-scale attack was about to be launched on Nalchik [1]. On October 11, a large cache of explosives was discovered, followed by a party of militants being trapped in a Nalchik suburb on the morning of the 13th. According to Basayev, local fighters insisted on carrying out their plans despite Russian awareness that an attack could be imminent. When the raid began, parents worried about another Beslan massacre and rushed to evacuate the schools, but these did not figure in the militants’ list of targets.

Basayev reported that the mujahideen “stormed 15 military objects” [2] and British-based rebel spokesman Akhmad Zakayev used the phrase “legitimate military operation” to describe the raid [3]. The “military targets” of the rebels were carefully listed in their post-raid statements. Sadulayev cited strict orders to the fighters to avoid civilian casualties at all costs: “Our soldiers attacked military targets… where there were no civilian citizens… Such military operations by our troops will from now on become, God willing, the constant lot of the occupiers and their servants everywhere in the Caucasus” [4].

The attack was more effective than Russian spokespersons have admitted to, and the number of “Wahhabi” dead has almost certainly been inflated by adding the bodies of male civilians to their totals. Though their own casualties were high (with 41 out of 217 insurgents killed, according to Basayev), most of the raiders appear to have escaped with captured arms. It was a poor showing by Russian security forces who had several days advance notice of the raid and were reinforced by hundreds of Special
Forces members.

Most significantly, the Nalchik operation was almost exclusively carried out by fighters from the “Caucasian Front” established by Maskhadov. These Ingush, North Ossetians, Karachays, and Cherkess joined local Kabardians and Balkars in carrying out their missions with only minimal Chechen involvement in the operation. This constitutes a major difference from the Nazran raid of June 2004, when Ingush militants received substantial Chechen assistance.

New Leadership from the President

Relations between Maskhadov and Basayev were always influenced by their past, thus inhibiting cooperation between the two. Basayev needed Maskhadov to legitimize the resistance movement through his elected role as president, while Basayev was too valuable (and too powerful) for Maskhadov to eliminate. In Maskhadov’s last year the two continued to cooperate on military raids (like that on Nazran), while Basayev otherwise remained outside the official command structure as leader of his own battalion of suicide-fighters. Sadulayev’s presidency allows Basayev a chance to reintegrate with the Chechen command. Before Maskhadov’s death in March 2005, Basayev claimed to be preparing “more Beslans.” By June, Sadulayev was declaring that “the Chechen government does not plan any operations similar to the Beslan one” [5]. Of course, all this has been tried before. Maskhadov was in a perpetual struggle to harness Basayev’s energies in strictly military operations, but with limited success. (Basayev has noted that in his disagreements with Maskhadov, Sadulayev acted as “a counterbalance in my opposition… not allowing us to overstep the mark”). The Sadulayev/Basayev relationship is significantly different, and will eventually be put to the test by the mercurial Basayev.

Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev

For the first time in the modern struggle, Chechens have a religious scholar at their fore, a more traditional type of leadership than the soldier-turned-politician model of Dudayev and Maskhadov. This thought was no doubt in the forefront in Maskhadov’s mind when he chose a successor. A native religious figure would allow for a unifying presence at the top and a chance to refute damaging (and popularly held) allegations that the Chechen armed forces are led and directed by Arab Islamists connected to al-Qaeda.

In a June 2005 Chechen-language video statement, Sadulayev addressed the Chechen people in terms very similar to those used in the manifestos of the Yarmuk Jama’at in Kabardino-Balkaria (an “assault subdivision” of Yarmuk took part in the Nalchik raid). The concerns are local rather than international: the evil of drug addiction, the inviolability of Chechen women, respect for elders and the loss of traditional values. These are basic appeals to the day-to-day reality of Chechen life; the strong social net having been ripped asunder by violence. Sadulayev calls for spiritual regeneration through dedication to the expulsion of the Russians. The president also dispensed with the epithet of “Wahhabism” as applied to the Chechen resistance by affirming that Chechens already knew how to pray in mosques and observe Islamic customs long before the word “Wahhabi” was heard in the North Caucasus [6].

The Search for Legitimacy

Sadulayev has repeated his view on terrorism at every opportunity: attacks must be limited to military and economic objectives, unarmed civilians are to be left alone, and any deviation from this represents an abandonment of Chechen values. Sadulayev is following Maskhadov’s lead in distancing the Chechen struggle from association with al-Qaeda or any other Arab jihadist struggle (in an interview just before his death, Maskhadov maintained that bin Laden “couldn’t find Chechnya on a map” [7]). In his statements there is an emphasis on the Caucasian struggle, and no mention of Iraq or other hot-spots of the war on terrorism. According to Sadulayev, the Chechen resistance “recognizes conventional international law and respects the democratic values established in the foundations of the state structures of many countries of the world; but on the other hand, these must not become a pretext for imposing laws on the Chechens that contradict our spiritual values” [8].

The assassination of Chechen ex-president Zelimkhan Yandarbaev (responsible for fund-raising in the Persian Gulf states) by Russian agents in Qatar and the attraction of the Iraq war for militant Islamists have combined to decrease Arab funding and influence in the Chechen conflict. Rather than “go it alone” with severely depleted resources, the Chechens have created another option—spreading the conflict to divert pressure from Chechnya while using the arms stockpiles of Russian security services as convenient armories.

Both Sadulayev and Basayev complain that the international media, which has an otherwise insatiable appetite for “terrorist” actions, routinely ignores Chechen military operations. The Chechen information war has ground to a near halt for lack of funding. It is an ongoing dilemma for the Chechen leadership, which desperately need to bring international attention to its cause. Basayev thought he had discovered the answer by turning the Russian methods of “state terrorism” against the Russians themselves in failed terrorist actions at Beslan and the Nord-Ost Theatre in Moscow. Although his arguments have a certain post-moral logic to them, his practical efforts in this vein have set the Chechen cause back rather than furthered it. Periodic city-scale assaults on military and political targets may provide a means of putting the North Caucasus on the front pages without risking the international approbation that follows mass hostage-takings.

Conclusion

The importance of having a native Islamic scholar leading the Chechen resistance cannot be overstated. Sadulayev himself draws upon the 18th and 19th century rebellions of Shaykh Mansur and Imam Shamil in calling for a pan-Caucasian uprising. If the Chechen command wishes to exploit the growing dissatisfaction with Russian rule in the North Caucasus, then they will need the cooperation of Basayev. A veteran of pan-Caucasian organizations since the early 1990s, it is Basayev who has traveled through the Northern Caucasus in the last few years, developing ties to militant groups. Many of his personal links, such as to Dagestan guerrilla leader Rappani Khalilov, date back to Basayev’s pan-Caucasian legion that carried out the ill-considered attacks on Dagestan in 1999.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to impose order in the Caucasus rather than create it, the Russian Duma passes more counter-terrorism bills designed to eliminate the mounting insurgency with a few strokes of the pen. For years Russian security forces in the North Caucasus have trumpeted their repeated destruction of a phantom “terrorist organization” led by Karachay fugitive Achimez Gochiyayev while a real uprising was brewing beneath their feet. Systematic corruption, arbitrary police brutality and needless provocations like closing most mosques (as in Kabardino-Balkaria) have severed the allegiance of many young men from the state. The Nalchik raid was in no way a general uprising, but was successful enough to aid in the ongoing recruitment of fighters.

Sadulayev is poised to become a force by proving that his talk of a “Caucasian Front” against Russia is not empty, but he will need to rein in the excesses of Commander Basayev and others. The now daily fighting between security forces and jama’at members in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria are the fall-out from Moscow’s decades-old mismanagement of the North Caucasus region, and provide fertile ground for Sadulayev’s leadership—if he survives assassins long enough.

Notes

“Militants planning airport bomb attack detained in North Caucasus,” RIA Novosti, October 8, 2005.
Statement from Military Amir Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris (Shamil Basayev) on results of assault operation in Nalchik on 13 October, 2005, Kavkaz Center, October 17, 2005.
Neil Buckley: “Chechen battle statement spurs Moscow anger with London,” Financial Times, October 15, 2005.
Statement by President of the ChRI Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, October 18, 2005, www.chechenpress.info/events/2005/10/18/01.shtml
“Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev: ‘We promise Russians war up to the victorious end’” Text of interview with Radio Marsho, June 30, 2005, www.chechenpress.co.uk/english/news/2005/07/09/02.shtml
“Statement of the President of the ChRI, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev to the Chechen People”, June 2, 2005, chechenpress.co.uk/english/news/2005/06/27/05.shtml
Liz Fuller: “Chechen leader gives exclusive interview to RFE/RL”, March 7, 2005, www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/03/C8BF5CC0-D91F-4DAC-9185-A451B1124B1D.html
“Message from the President of the ChRI, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, to the Chechen nation”, March 14, 2005, chechenpress.co.uk/new/2005/03/14/12.shtml

This article first appeared in the November 3, 2005 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

The Jamaat Movement in Kabardino-Balkaria

Posted on April 6, 2005 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

April 6, 2005

Shortly before his death in March 2005, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov made some interesting remarks about the spreading political violence in the Russian republics of the Northwest Caucasus. Maskhadov described the necessity of “broadening the front of military resistance” after the Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1999: “On my orders, additional sectors were established: Ingush, Kabardino-Balkar, Daghestan, etc. Emirs [commanders] of these fronts were appointed, and they are all subordinate to the military leadership of the Chechen resistance.”

There was something strange about these remarks. The republics in question were relatively quiet in the early years of the war, and Maskhadov frequently presented himself as an opponent of spreading the war from Chechnya to its neighbors. The “admission” may have been an attempt to apply pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate by presenting the Chechens as controlling the growing cycle of violence. Nevertheless, urban warfare between militants and security forces has become common in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR).

Yet there may be nothing new about what is perceived as the widening of the Chechen war. Both the KBR and the neighboring Karachai–Cherkessian Republic (KCR) have supplied a steady source of fighters to the conflict in Chechnya. Many began their careers in the Islamic Peacekeeping Army that invaded Dagestan in 1999. While Chechens are routinely blamed for all bombings and other terrorist acts, it is the Turkic-speaking Karachays and Balkars that have actually been prosecuted for these incidents. An example is the 1999 apartment block bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, where blame was laid on Chechnya but all the individuals actually charged for these acts hail from Karachaevo-Cherkessia or Kabardino-Balkaria.

The Jamaat Movement

Jamaats (Islamic communities) began to emerge in the KCR and KBR in 1996 as a reaction to the opening of the former Soviet Republics to the outside world of Islam. With the established structures of “official Islam” held in distrust, a younger generation began to seek connections with “true Islam”, which to many meant adoption of Salafist beliefs current in the Arabian heartland of the faith but foreign to the North Caucasus. Some jamaats are entirely peaceful, while others have felt the lure of the message of jihad and adopted armed revolt. The Yarmuk Jamaat is of the latter type, having been formed in 2002 from Balkar followers of Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev in the Pankisi Gorge.

Other young Muslims have turned to the leadership of the self-described Emir of Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria, Musa Mukhozhev. Mukhozhev’s Salafist Islam has experienced a sudden growth in popularity as many young people abandon the region’s traditional Sufi beliefs. Russia’s new Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev (himself a Tatar Muslim) has disparaged the republic as a breeding-ground for foreign-supported “Wahhabism”. The FSB (former KGB) directorate for the KBR alleges U.S., Turkish, and Middle Eastern involvement in intelligence and sabotage activities in the republic. [1] Despite these characterizations and allegations, Islam remains barely visible in the KBR after decades of Soviet secularism.

The KBR government has imposed restrictions on Islam that recall Soviet rule. All mosques save one in Nalchik have been closed, and the wearing of beards or praying outside the home marks an individual for arrest. Some young Muslims detained by police have had crosses shaved into their scalps. A list of 400 people deemed security threats has been compiled, though some suspect the list contains many non-militants whom the regime dislikes. Mukhozhev notes that “It is very hard for us to keep the youth from retaliating. The authorities’ policy cannot be described as sensible – rather, it is provocative.” [2] The FSB maintains that the KBR has become a base for terrorism and religious extremism. [3]

Militant Manifestos

In August 2004, the Yarmuk Jamaat announced the beginning of military operations in the KBR. [4] The statement rejected terrorism, calling it the preferred method of Russian security services: “We are not fighting against women or children, like Russian invaders are doing in Ichkeria (Chechnya). We are not blowing up sleeping people, like (the) FSB of the Russian Federation does.” (The last sentence refers to alleged FSB responsibility for the 1999 apartment bombings). The author expresses anger at the Russian forces, but focuses on the divisive corruption of the “mafia clans” that lead the republic: “These mere apologies for rulers, who sold themselves to the invaders, have made drug addiction, prostitution, poverty, crime, depravity, drunkenness and unemployment prosper in our Republic.”

Following the assault on the Narcotics Police of Nalchik on December 13, 2004 that left four policemen dead and a large quantity of weapons in rebel hands the jamaat released another statement alleging the Narcotics Police were actually involved in the distribution of drugs in the republic. The effect of narcotics sales on young people and the crime-rate of the republic were discussed in detail, with death being described as the appropriate penalty for the narcotics agents/drug-dealers under the Shari’a. [5]

A January 21 statement is the most detailed exposition of Yarmuk’s aims. [6] It begins with a summary of historic injustices suffered by the Muslims of the Northwest Caucasus at Russian hands while maintaining that Shari’a law has been the legitimate legal code in the region since 1807. The authors avoid reference to radical Islamic thought, preferring to establish the orthodoxy of their movement by citing the Hanafite legal code (one of the four accepted schools of Sunni Islamic law) as justification for beginning a “defensive [and hence obligatory] jihad.” Emphasizing personal reasoning and exercise of judgment, the Hanafite code differs greatly from the rigid and inflexible terms of the Hanbalite legal school followed in Saudi Arabia. The Hanafite interpretation is traditional in the Caucasus, and is a touchstone in the author’s appeal to historic resentment of Russian rule.

The Yarmuk statements are an unusual blend of Islamic militancy and local concerns (extending even to the scandalous behavior of a local pop singer). They describe an indigenous movement that derives its purpose from regional and traditional interpretations of Islam rather than imported “Wahhabism”. Indeed, foreign solutions to the problems of the KBR are explicitly rejected – Western democracy is deemed to practice a double standard in its dealings with the Russian Federation, while there is “nothing but betrayal to be expected from the fattened womanlike ‘sheikhs’ of the East.”

The Yarmuk manifestos call for political change through moral revolution. Even the Russians are warned that their rule in the North Caucasus is crippling them, “morally and physically”. The KBR’s large Orthodox minority and tiny Jewish community are both offered the protection of dhimmi status under Shari’a law. [7] The statements were probably the work of Yarmuk leader Muslim Atayev and his associate Ilyas Bichukayev, both graduates of the University of Nalchik. The two were both killed in a day-long gun battle in Nalchik on January 27.

Ethnic Dimensions of the Conflict

The Balkar population of the KBR was subject to total deportation to Central Asia by the Soviets in 1944. Though they were gradually allowed to return to their homelands after Kruschev’s reforms, land concerns and subordinate status remain contentious issues between Karbards and Balkars. There were suggestions of an ethnic component to the December 2004 attack on the Narcotics Police in Nalchik since the attackers were Balkar and the four murdered officers were Kabards, but this was perhaps inevitable since Kabards dominate all the republic’s security services. The Yarmuk statements contain no hint of the Balkar nationalism that was so prominent a decade ago. In a recent poll of Karbardino-Balkarians, only 1% mentioned ethnic problems as the “hottest problem” in the republic, even though they were allowed to give two answers. [8]

Muslim Atayev

The Balkarian enclave around Mount Elbrus (Europe’s highest peak) is the home of many Yarmuk members, including the late Muslim Atayev. In mid-March 2005 the region was the special focus of a Russian counterterrorism sweep designed to preempt retaliation for Maskhadov’s death. The characterization of the Elbrus Balkars as Wahhabites has been used by the KBR regime to remove the tourist town of Prielbrusye (and its revenues) from local administration, placing it under the direct control of the capital Nalchik, 120 kilometers away.

Conclusion

A Balkar insurgency would present different challenges than those faced by the resistance in Chechnya. The Balkar homelands within the republic are small and geographically divided. Balkars represent only 10% of the KBR’s population and remain surrounded by Russian and Kabard communities. It is, in fact, the ultimate triumph of Soviet gerrymandering; a gift from Stalin to Putin. It is partly for this reason that efforts are being made by the mainly Balkar Yarmuk Jamaat to reach out to the Kabard (Circassian) community in the name of Islam and a brotherhood of Caucasian “Mountaineers”. The anti-religious measures of the government have affected Kabardian Muslims as well as Balkars. According to a statement from the Jamaat the new leader of the Yarmuk War Council is a Kabard. [9]

Maskhadov’s remarks seemed to contain the seed of a new strategy by the Chechen resistance: offering Chechen experience and leadership to militants in neighboring republics in order to expand the war and divert Russian military resources from Chechnya. Anti-Islamic measures, mass unemployment and police brutality ensure a constant flow of recruits to the jamaats. Though never part of the idealistic Pan-Caucasian camp of the late Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and others, Maskhadov saw clearly how Russian repressive measures might give the disparate peoples of the mountain republics a common cause. Though Maskhadov may have ordered the creation of these new fronts, it is the remarkably well-traveled Basayev who has demonstrated operational control. Basayev spent six weeks in KBR in 2003, narrowly escaping capture in a firefight at Baksan.

Both Russians and Islamists accuse the other of provoking war in the KBR. Russia has steadily increased the number of soldiers, police and secret services in the republics over the last year and incidents of torture, arbitrary arrest, and disappearances are now commonplace. The Yarmuk statements suggest that Islam will serve as a rallying point for young people tired of repressive rule, corruption and lack of economic opportunity. The war in Chechnya continues to serve as the catalyst for the violence, and the Kremlin’s pursuit of a military solution there ensures an escalating cycle of insurgency and repression in Kabardino-Balkaria.

Notes

Sergei Ushakov, quoted in Itar-Tass, December 16, 2004.
Milrad Fatullayev: “Building Bridges’ with the help of APCs’, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Feb. 2, 2005, www.ng.ru/politics/2005-02-02/2_kb.html.
Inga Babayeva: ‘Local governments’ measures to fight extremism and terrorism’, Caucasus Times, March 23, 2005.
‘A Warning to Russia’ (Statement by the Information Council of Kabardino-Balkarian Islamic Jamaat (War Council) ‘Yarmuk”), Kavkaz Center, August 24, 2004.
‘Yarmuk claimed responsibility for the attack’, Kavkaz Center, Dec. 15, 2004.
‘The Doors of Jihad are open’ (Statement of the Yarmuk Jamaat, Mujahideen of Kabardino-Balkaria), Kavkaz Center, January 21, 2005.
Dhimmi status is traditionally available to ‘People of the Book’ (Christians and Jews) in Islamic states. The protected communities have an inferior social status and are obliged to pay an additional tax, but are often exempted from military service.
‘Over 40% of Nalchik residents link upsurge of violence in Kabardino-Balkaria with spread of Chechen war’, Caucasus Times, March 29, 2005.
‘Kabardino-Balkaria: Russian Muslim woman becomes a Martyr in battle’, Kavkaz Center, Feb. 2, 2005.

This article first appeared in the April 6, 2005 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

The Assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev: Implications for the War on Terrorism

Posted on July 14, 2004 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

July 14, 2004

“Now is the Time of the Assassins” – Arthur Rimbaud

The February 13 assassination in Qatar of former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev by Russian agents is one of many challenges to international law posed by the new tactics of the “War on Terrorism.” America’s doctrine of preemptive “defensive” use of force has been enthusiastically taken up by several other powers, including Russia, which announced its own policy on the preemptive use of military force in the case of “direct threats” to Russia in October 2003. Unfortunately the definition of justified pre-emptive action depends on the national interests of each nation-state, as does the identification of individuals as “terrorists,” a prescription for inevitable conflict. The consequences of reinterpreting international law were recently displayed at the trial of Yandarbiyev’s assassins in petroleum-rich Qatar, base of operations for U.S. Central Command during the Iraq campaign.

Zelimkkhan Yandarbiyev (Reuters)

A Theorist of Jihad

Yandarbiyev, 52 at his death, was born in Kazakhstan during the years of Stalin’s exile of the Chechen nation. A poet and children’s author, Yandarbiyev became a leader in the Chechen nationalist movement as the Soviet Union began to collapse. During the 1994-96 war, Yandarbiyev had little connection with military operations, spending his time writing books on the independence effort. After the Chechens retook Grozny, Yandarbiyev helped negotiate the war-ending Khasavyurt Accords, shocking Boris Yeltsin by his insistence that the Chechen delegation be accorded equal status with Russia at the negotiations. It was the high point in his struggle for Chechen independence.

Yandarbiyev served as President of Chechnya from April 1996 to January 1997 after the assassination by targeted missile of his predecessor, Djokar Dudayev. His vision of an Islamic Chechnya was soundly rejected in the Presidential elections of 1997, in which he placed a distant third. In the second Chechen war, Yandarbiyev was assigned as Chechen representative in the Gulf because of his “authority and connections” in the region.

In his appearances on al-Jazeera TV and elsewhere, Yandarbiyev grew increasingly dismissive of appeals to the West for moral or material support for the Chechen cause. It was his belief that all Muslim nations should provide the Chechen jihad with military as well as humanitarian assistance in support of “Chechnya as an independent Islamic state.” [1] After numerous disagreements with Maskhadov, Yandarbiyev dissociated himself from the government in November 2002, calling for less restraint in the methods used in the “national liberation struggle.” Living in Qatar as a guest of its ruler, Emir al-Thani, Yandarbiyev wrote extensively on his radical interpretation of the theory of jihad, including the books Whose Caliphate? and Jihad and Problems of the Contemporary World.

Yandarbiyev’s attempts to gather official Arab and Muslim support for Chechen aspirations were largely unsuccessful, save for recognition of Chechen independence by the Taliban government of Afghanistan. This effort was unappreciated by Maskhadov, who refused to give his approval. Hindered further by Russia’s warnings to Muslim states that a visit from Yandarbiyev would be regarded as “a hostile act,” Yandarbiyev spent much of his time writing in his Qatar villa. Russia made the first of several requests for extradition in February 2003, citing Yandarbiyev as a major international terrorist and financier of the “al-Qaeda backed” Chechen resistance.

In June 2003, Yandarbiyev was placed on the UN Security Council’s blacklist of al-Qaeda-related terrorist suspects. By the terms of the UN’s decision all member states were called upon to freeze funds, ban financial support, and prevent the entry of Yandarbiyev to their countries. Yandarbiyev expressed outrage at the listing: “I should say that those trying to label me as a terrorist showed what they are, by agreeing with the most dirty and inhumane stronghold of international terrorism and criminal activity, such as is Russia today in its criminal military-political regime.” [2]

On February 13, 2004, a car bomb killed Yandarbiyev and badly injured his young son. In Grozny, the newly “elected” Russian-backed President Akhmad Kadyrov declared that no one in Chechnya would regret Yandarbiyev’s fate. A few months later, Kadyrov would himself be victim of an assassin’s bomb.

A Trial of Two Agents

After the bombing there were many in Russia who were willing to give the opinion that Yandarbiyev was the victim of a traditional Chechen blood vendetta or Mujahideen angry at alleged misappropriation of funds. The most creative explanation of his death came from the Headquarters of Russian forces in the Caucasus, suggesting that Yandarbiyev was the victim of angry Azerbaijani book-publishers who had lost money on his “anti-Russian” books. [3]

Yandarbiyev’s Van after the Bombing (Middle East Online)

The arrests occurred at a villa rented for the Russian agents some distance from the Russian Embassy. Alexander Fetisov, First Secretary of the Embassy, claimed diplomatic immunity and was eventually released. For the others, the future looked grim; there were witnesses, bomb-making materials seized from the villa, and the Qataris had recordings of all their cell-phone traffic. Convinced that they had been abandoned to their fate, the two agents gave detailed confessions. These were later withdrawn when a team of top Russian lawyers arrived to defend them, but despite Russian allegations that the statements were the result of torture, they were accepted into evidence. Efforts to claim the villa as Russian diplomatic territory to force the exclusion of evidence taken there were also unsuccessful.

Many leading Russian politicians called for the use of military force to release the suspects. One proposal called for Qatar to be targeted by dummy missiles, with real ones to follow if the agents were not released. Other politicians hinted at American responsibility for the assassination; according to Duma Deputy Nikolai Leonov (a 33 year veteran of Russian intelligence), “There is only one country in the world today, which widely practices political murders – it’s the USA. Moreover, this activity is completely legal there – there is this special President’s Decree, which permits them to conduct such ‘special operations’.” [4] Russia had actually threatened to rescue the agents with a Special Forces operation – an act of madness considering the concentration of U.S. forces in the tiny Emirate. [5]

A senior U.S. diplomat admitted that the U.S. had rendered ” very insignificant technical assistance” to Qatar in the apprehension of the Russian agents, [6] apparently in the form of “a small team of experts in the technical aspects of explosives.” [7] The head of the Russian team of lawyers alleged that investigation records had been doctored to omit American involvement. [8]

In a return to the methods of the Cold War, two members of the Qatar wrestling team were arrested on February 26 for alleged currency violations while changing planes in Moscow. Their detention sparked predictable outrage in Qatar. The wrestlers were released a month later when Fetisov was allowed to return to Russia. Shortly after, a Russian spokesman made the surprising and unsubstantiated charge that Yandarbiyev was responsible for the 1996 attack on a Red Cross hospital in Noviye Atagi in which six international workers were murdered.

The Russian position was consistent throughout the trial: the agents “stayed in Qatar legally and carried out informational and analytical tasks related to the fight against international terrorism without any violation of the local legislation.” [9] Foreign Minister Lavrov pointed to Russia’s condemnation of the assassination of Hamas leader Shaykh Yassin as proof of Russia’s rejection of extrajudicial punishments. As the verdict approached, the Kremlin made a surprising show of clemency itself, releasing seven alleged Russian Taliban members [10] recently transferred from Guantanamo Bay – despite an understanding with the U.S. that the prisoners would be prosecuted on their return to Russia.

On June 30, the Russians were found guilty of carrying out a murder “ordered by the Russian leadership.” Chechen rebels declared that the verdict had finally shown “who is the terrorist and who is the victim of terror.” [11] Yandarbiyev’s widow is now seeking to have his UN terrorist designation reversed posthumously. A pardon for the killers remains uncertain; the murder was an enormous affront to the personal dignity of the Emir. Yandarbiyev was buried in the royal family’s cemetery, and praised as a “holy warrior for Islam.”

The Tactic of Assassination

U.S. Pentagon officials began to consider the use of assassination in 2002 as part of a boundary-less War on Terrorism, unhindered by Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333 against the use of such tactics. Press reports cited Israeli cooperation in training U.S. Special Forces to carry out “extrajudicial punishments.” [12] Assassination is widely accepted as being prohibited by two international agreements:

1) Regulations annexed to the Hague Convention IV (1907), in which it is forbidden to “kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army,” and

2) The Geneva Conventions on the Law of War, Common Article 3, which prohibits “the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court.”

Nevertheless, there are many members of the current U.S. administration who believe that these agreements and related executive orders have no application in the War on Terrorism. Some legal experts have argued that Article 51 of the UN Charter allows for “anticipatory” self-defense, though others argue that the Charter refers only to nation-states and not individuals. After the November 2002 assassination of al-Qaeda leader Qaed al-Harthi and five compatriots in Yemen by the missiles of a CIA Predator unmanned aircraft, U.S. National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice maintained that President Bush was “well within the bounds of accepted practice and the letter of his constitutional authority.” [13] When authority to launch similar strikes was passed to various members of the administration, assassination found new legitimacy as a tactic in the War on Terrorism.

When asked if Russia had the right to kill terrorists on foreign territory, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs referred to U.S. and Israeli precedents: “This is a conceptual question, connected with actions of Israel against Palestinian terrorists, and also by actions against the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, (and) the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. This question shouldn’t be put to Russia.” [14]

Conclusion

The Yandarbiyev case is an important milestone in the renegade approach to the War on Terrorism. The boldness with which Russia carried out its operation in the midst of sensitive U.S. military installations suggests that America may have acquired a “rogue-partner” in the war on terror. Hopefully the case will act as proof that the targeting of individuals given political refuge in third-party countries is counter-productive. The verdict also begs a clarification from the United States on its own pre-emptive policies, so often cited by Russia and others as the inspiration for their own campaigns of targeted killings. The UN must also make it clear whether the Security Council’s blacklist is also a “hit-list.” The alternative is a future in which assassination squads roam the world’s capitals, leaving murder and mayhem in their wake in the name of the “War on Terrorism.” It is the choice between an era of international law, or the “Time of the Assassins.”

Notes

“War, unleashed in Georgia and Azerbaijan 12 years ago, has not ended” [Interview with Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev], Zerkalo (Azerbaijan), Sept.24, 2002.
“Exclusive interview of the ex-president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev with the Daymohk News Agency,” July 15, 2004, www.daymohk.info/rus/index.php.
Ilya Shabalkin, quoted in: “Former Chechen rebel leader killed for $200,000,” Gazeta.ru, Feb.16, 2004.
Olga Kultonova: Nikolai Leonov: “Only Americans could kill Yandarbiyev,” Feb.29, 2004, www.newsinfo.ru.
Michael Binyon and Jeremy Page: “Qatar bombers ‘were Russian special forces’,” The Times (London), March 12, 2004.
Andrey Zlobin: “Interview with Steven Pifer [U.S. Deputy Assistant for European and Eurasian Affairs],” Vremya Novostey no.47, March 22, 2004, www.vremya.ru/2004/47/5/94450.html.
Anatoly Medetsky: “U.S. helped Qatar make the arrests,” Moscow Times, March 23, 2004.
Mikhail Zygar: “They have inquisitional trial” [Interview with Dmitriy Afanasyev], Kommersant no.77, April 28, 2004.
Yuri Zinin: “Russians on trial in Qatar feel ‘normal’, says Russian embassy,” RIA Novosti, June 28, 2004.
Andrew McGregor: “From Russia to Cuba: The Journey of the Russian Taliban,” Central Asia – Caucasus Analyst (Central Asia Caucasus Institute – Johns Hopkins University), July 16, 2003, www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php.
Akhmad Zakayev, quoted in Andrew Hammond, “Qatar court jails Russians over Chechen killing,” Reuters, June 30, 2004: Nearly identical comments were made by Shamyl Basayev: “Chechen warlord says won’t hurt Russians abroad –TV,” Reuters, July 2, 2004.
Julian Borger: “Israel trains U.S. assassination squads in Iraq,” The Guardian, Dec.9, 2003.
“Bush gives nod to more attacks on terrorists,” Reuters, Nov.11, 2002.
MFA Sergey Lavrov, quoted in: “Yandarbiev assassination: No Russian connection, says Foreign Minister,” RIA Novosti (Moscow), March 18, 2004.

This article was first published in the July 14, 2004 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

“Operation Boomerang”: Shamil Basayev’s Justification for Terrorism

Posted on February 26, 2004 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

February 26, 2004

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev is no stranger to violence. In the turbulent world of the northern Caucasus, Basayev has fought in the Abkhaz rebellion of 1992-93, and played a central role in the first Chechen war of 1994-96, the invasion of Dagestan in 1999, and the current conflict in Chechnya. In addition, he received training in guerrilla warfare and covert operations from both Russia and Afghanistan. There is no question that Basayev is one of the most experienced and dangerous practitioners of “asymmetrical warfare” in the world today. It is often said that the suicide truck-bombers of Iraq have adopted Palestinian or al Qaeda tactics, but it was Basayev who perfected the procedure in a series of attacks on Russian targets that began in 2000. Today Basayev declares himself at war with Russian “state terrorism,” alleging genocidal intentions on the part of Moscow.

Shamyl Basayev

TACTICAL SHIFT

Once an exponent of purely military tactics against the Russians, Basayev has openly embraced the tactics of terrorism in the last year, seeking to provoke a catalytic event that would free Chechnya from Russian rule. The shift comes from the recognition that the Chechen resistance can no longer mount mass assaults like the one on Grozny that ended the first conflict in 1996. “Our mission today is to give the invaders a good kick to push them to withdraw, and, God willing, we will do that!” His dismissal from the Chechen command structure after admitting his complicity in organizing the infamous hostage taking at a Moscow theater in October 2002 appears to have liberated Basayev from the necessity of harmonizing his words and actions with those of the beleaguered Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov.

In his defense of terrorism Basayev uses a mix of reasoning, Chechen proverbs and bitter humor to pose difficult questions to the West regarding appropriate responses to “state terrorism.” While the concept of “state terrorism” is rarely part of the security discourse in the West, it has a prominent place in the Islamic world, as seen in the provocative comments of Malaysia’s President Mahathir Mohamad at the October 2003 APEC conference:

“Terror attacks are not just by irregulars… Indeed, we see states launching massive retaliation, not just to curb suspected terrorists, but his family, his village and his town. It would be ridiculous to think that such attacks do not terrorize the innocent. In fact, the terrorism is even greater, for it is systematic and executed with heavy weapons in the hands of trained soldiers.” [1]

In response to the atrocities carried out by Russian security forces in Chechnya, Basayev remarks: “Today we can see on TV how rapid-reaction units and special-purpose police units are getting dispatched (to Chechnya), and how their wives, their sisters and their mothers are wishing them a good trip. We will be conducting operations right in those cities and villages where they came from.” This declaration follows a decision taken by Basayev’s Riyadus Salikhin Brigade of Martyrs to undertake “Operation Boomerang,” applying the principle of collective responsibility to the Russians, just as the Russians apply it in Chechnya by carrying out retaliation attacks on the families of Chechen resistance fighters. “Collective responsibility” has long been an established policy in Israel’s war on terrorist formations, and the United States has recently been accused of applying the policy in Iraq (in violation of the Geneva Conventions) through arrests of family members of suspected resistance members and the destruction of their homes.

BASAYEV’S ARGUMENT

On August 4, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell designated Basayev a threat to U.S. security, adding that Basayev “has committed, or poses the risk of committing, acts of terrorism” against America. [2] Before the American intervention in Afghanistan, Basayev rarely commented on the United States, other than to criticize its lack of support for the Chechen struggle. Since then, however, Basayev now refers to “Adolf Bush,” and describes America as a mirror image of the Roman Empire, thrashing out against “the barbarians” as it collapses from internal corruption and moral decay.

Unlike many Islamists, however, Basayev denies that the United States is engaged in an anti-Islamic “crusade.” “There is nothing crusading in America’s actions. This is a satanic campaign against the entire world, against anything sacred in this world, against Islam, against Christianity, against Judaism–it is… the attack of godlessness and Satanism against the Faith on all fronts and all levels under the guise of all sorts of slogans.” [3] Basayev also adds that the removal of dictators like Saddam Hussein will benefit Muslims, giving them the chance to rise together in unity. Saddam, a vocal supporter of the Russian campaign in Chechnya, is little missed in rebel circles.

Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev

Basayev calls the bombings of Russian security installations “anti-terror” operations. The use of suicide bombers in attacks has been defended by a former president of Chechnya, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev: “Acts of self-sacrifice have been happening in all times during all wars that had a sacred nature, like the national liberation Jihad of the Chechen people. Chechens, Palestinians and other people are all using them… The main thing is that they were aimed at achieving godly goals of the fight and inflicting maximum damage on the enemy.” Current President Aslan Maskhadov takes another view: “Shamil thinks, I’m sure, he’s absolutely sincere, that in the conflict with Russia, all methods are permitted for the Chechens. In the view of the specific circumstances, I can’t agree with this. Today Shamil Basayev isn’t part of the armed forces of the Chechen Republic.” [4]

The tactics of terror are, of course, nothing new to Basayev, who first came to attention as an airplane hijacker in 1991. Since then he has planted radioactive material in Moscow (as a warning), seized a hospital with 200 hostages in Budennovsk, and executed Russian prisoners after the Russian army failed to exchange alleged war criminal Colonel Yury Budanov for the men (a decision Basayev and Saudi warlord al-Khattab claimed was fully justified by Islamic law).

“They are trying to accuse us of killing innocent people… They cannot be “totally innocent,” for the simple fact that they are approving of this slaughter, financing it, electing the rulers that are publicly promising to deal with the Chechens, and conducting genocide on the Chechen land.” [5]

Amir Abu al-Walid, leader of the Arab contingent in Chechnya, has similarly declared that the Russian people bore responsibility for electing the Putin government, and must now pay “with their blood and their sons.” [6] Basayev is not the first radical to come to a conclusion of “collective responsibility” on the part of his opponents. His defense of terrorist methods recalls the statement made by anarchist bomber Emile Henry at his Paris trial in 1894:

“Those good bourgeois who hold no office but who reap their dividends and live idly on the profits of the workers’ toil, they also must take their share in the reprisals. And not only they, but all those who are satisfied with the existing order, who applaud the acts of government and so become its accomplices … We will not spare the women and children of the bourgeois, for the women and children of those we love have not been spared.” [7]

In November of 2002 Basayev warned the NATO nations of the havoc he intended to wreak in the Russian interior, outlining the cost to the Western world of a Russian collapse. Hampered in mobility by multiple wounds and the amputation of his foot, Basayev nevertheless remains capable of mounting deadly strikes at Russian targets. Despite being declared a threat to American interests, Basayev appears to be satisfied with verbal jabs at the West for now, choosing to remind the West of its complicity in the coming violence through its support of President Putin.

FAR FROM ALONE

Basayev’s charges have been echoed within Russia by the co-leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), Irina Khakamada, who has appealed to Russian victims of “state terrorism,” and by independent presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin, who has described the activities of Putin and his circle as “state crimes.” Basayev now finds himself at odds with the foreign minister of Chechnya, Ilyas Akhmadov, who routinely condemns every action of the “Brigade of Martyrs.” Akhmadov himself refers to the “terrorist and bandit formations calling themselves the Russian Army,” and opposes efforts to categorize Maskhadov’s military command (which now excludes Basayev) as “terrorists.”

Ahmed Zakaev, Maskhadov’s personal representative in Europe, also condemns the “Brigade of Martyrs,” but adds: “Let me stress that Basayev’s suicide bombers are not religious fanatics but people gripped by feelings of vengeance for their tortured sons, murdered infants, and raped daughters.” [8] President Maskhadov, a resolute advocate of the application of international law in the conflict, nevertheless displays some understanding of Basayev’s rage against Russia:

“Basayev is a warrior. He is somebody who is exerting revenge. He employs the same methods as the enemy, who uses them against the Chechens, civilians. It is an eye for an eye… If it were possible to subordinate Basayev and to funnel all his energy against the enemy, employing acceptable methods, he would achieve much more.” [9]

Basayev, now the lethal wild card of the Chechen conflict, is defiant to the end. He has offered to end the activities of the “Riyadus Salakhin” if the Russians agree to conduct the Chechen/Russian conflict according to international law. Otherwise,

“If the Kafirs (infidels) want me to die so bad, I can make them an offer: let them give me some money, about 10-20 million (or) more, and I will give that money to Maskhadov to continue the Jihad, and I myself will buy me a good Kamaz truck and will drive right up to them!” [10]

NOTES

Mahathir Mohamad, quoted in Tomi Soetjipto, “Mahathir lashes out at state terrorism, WTO,” Reuters, October 22, 2003.
U.S. Department of State: Public notice 4436: Determination Pursuant to Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224 Relating to Shamil Basayev.
“Interview with Basayev: Jihad is only starting to flare up in Ichkeria,” Kavkaz Center, June 9, 2003.
“Aslan Maskhadov: After “Nord-Ost”, Basayev has been acting on his own,” Interview by Novaya gazeta, October 2, 2003; at www.chechnya-mfa.info/print_press.php.
“Statement of the Amir of the Islamic Brigade of Shaheeds Riyadus Salikhin, Abdallah Shamyl Abu-Idris (Shamil Basayev),” Kavkaz Center, January 12, 2004.
“Arab commander says Chechnya war to spread to rest of Russia,” Al-Jazeera, November 19, 2003 [BBC Monitoring]. In a rare public statement al-Walid has also called on Iraqis to use suicide bombings against Coalition forces in Iraq: Muhammad al-Shafi’i, “Abu-al-Walid Al-Ghamidi, Commander of the Arab Fighters in Chechnya, Advises the Iraqis To Store Weapons and Stage Suicide Operations,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic (London), June 11, 2003.
recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/HenryEmile.htm
“Zakaev: Basayev Is Not Clearing His Actions With Maskhadov,” Moscow Grani.ru, June 15, 2003.
“Chechnya: Aslan Maskhadov’s appeal to put an end to the war,” Le Monde (Paris), October 3, 2003.
“Statement of the Amir of the Islamic Brigade of Shaheeds ‘Riyadus Salikhin’, ‘Abdallah Shamyl Abu-Idris (Shamil Basayev),” Kavkaz Center, January 12, 2004.

This article first appeared in the February 26, 2004 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Aberfoyle International Security

Category Archives: Russia

Islam, Jamaats and Implications for the North Caucasus – Part Two

A Sour Freedom: The Return of Russia’s Guantanamo Bay Prisoners

Radical Ukrainian Nationalism and the War in Chechnya

Distant Relations: Hamas and the Mujahideen of Chechnya

Crescent under the Cross: Shamyl Basayev’s Orthodox Enemy

Dokku Umarov: The Next in Line

Upheaval in Nalchik: New Directions in the Chechen Insurgency

The Jamaat Movement in Kabardino-Balkaria

The Assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev: Implications for the War on Terrorism

“Operation Boomerang”: Shamil Basayev’s Justification for Terrorism