Chechnya Weekly - Volume VI, Issue 31

August 10, 2005

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Chechen clerics declare jihad against "Wahhabis"
* Some Russian Muslims demur
* Zyazikov also considers gambling ban
* Security tightened on Grozny attack anniversary
* Borozdinovskaya and the role of revenge
* Novoselskoe violence: property brawl or inter-ethnic battle?
* Briefs
---------------------------------------------------------------------CHECHEN CLERICS DECLARE JIHAD AGAINST "WAHHABIS"

The Council of Muftis of the Chechen Republic on August 4 officially declared a jihad against "Wahhabism." Interfax quoted Chechen Mufti Sultan Mirzaev as telling journalists that the decision had been announced during a meeting between representatives of the clergy and law-enforcement agencies in the village of Tsentoroi, which is the home village of the Kadyrov clan. Mirzaev said it was the largest such meeting since the death of Akhmad Kadyrov in May 2004. "Wahhabism is the plague of the 20th and the 21st centuries," he said. "All Arabic scholars have come to be unanimous that those fighting against Wahhabism are on the path of jihad, following the way of Allah." Wahhabis and terrorists, he said, "are bringing evil into the world and the entire world must oppose them. We adopted an official fatwa (a religious ruling in Islam – Interfax), so that those fighting terrorism and Wahhabism have no doubt that their cause is just. We have declared war on these phenomena. Those killing innocent people must be either stopped or put behind bars or exterminated. This has to be done by whatever method. Our fatwa is that those who have shed blood, those who do not want to stop must be killed by any method." Mirzaev said rebels had killed sixteen district imams in Chechnya and that he himself had been "seriously wounded" in a rebel attack. "Should I remain silent about this?" he said. "If it becomes necessary, I will take up arms and I am ready to fight against them."

Various Chechen officials and politicians voiced support for the anti-Wahhabi fatwa. State Duma Deputy Ruslan Yamadaev said that Chechens welcomed the initiative, Moskovsky komsomolets reported on August 8. "The militants have blown up and shot policemen, imams, public servants, declaring that they are carrying out jihad, but now a clear and unequivocal answer has been given to the question of who really stands on the path of jihad," he said, adding that it was the police and other law-enforcement personnel who were carrying out jihad and "embarking on the righteous path."

Moskovsky komsomlets noted that the initiative for the jihad came from Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, who, in the newspaper's words, "gathered all the muftis and imams in one mosque and wouldn't let them out of there until they took the decision needed by the power structures." Indeed, on August 3, the day before the anti-Wahhabi jihad was announced, Kadyrov urged the republic's clergy to work with young people to dissuade them from joining the rebels. "Terrorist organizations leaders' are turning young people into cannon fodder," Interfax quoted him as saying. "These young guys lack the wisdom and experience to see what is actually going on and to resist attempts to involve them in illegal armed formations…Individual campaigns are ineffective. The clergy must deal with each person separately, and with the parents of those young men who are potential recruits for guerrilla groups."

It is thus no surprise that Kadyrov welcomed the anti-Wahhabi jihad declaration. "I welcome the decision from all the Chechen Republic authorities because the officers of law enforcement agencies who are actually at war with terrorism and Wahhabism have to be sure that what they are doing is not against the Koran or Islam," Interfax quoted him as saying. Reuters on August 4 quoted Kadyrov as saying in televised comments: "Today we unanimously adopted a resolution. (The religious leaders) announced that (Wahhabites) will bring nothing but harm to the people and to Islam. They are Wahhabites, and we must destroy them. If you ask me, we have a place where we can bury them – three meters down."

The anti-Wahhabi jihad was just one of several Kadyrov initiatives having to do with religion. He told reporters on August 3 that Europe's largest mosque, capable of accommodating 10,000 believers, would be built in downtown Grozny. "Grozny has not built a single mosque since the 1930s, when all mosques were destroyed," Kadyrov said. "The construction of this mosque and an Islamic center, or madrasah, will help spread true Islam, which has nothing to do with extremism, in Chechnya."

Kadyrov also announced on August 3 that he had issued a ban on gambling in response to the demands of senior clerics and the public, telling Itar-Tass that he had been approached by "elders and muftis" and "received tens of thousands of requests and even sometimes demands from the public, from almost every settlement, to remove gaming machines from Chechnya." "I am giving a week's notice to the owners of gambling parlors to dismantle their equipment," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying. "Otherwise, I will destroy the machines myself. Gambling is against the laws of Islam and has a negative impact on the younger generation. There are rumors that I own slot machines. It is a lie." Kadyrov added that he has never been involved and will not get involved in the gambling business. Itar-Tass reported that the owners of gambling businesses were likely to relocate their businesses activities to neighboring republics. The news agency quoted an anonymous businessman as saying that he and his colleagues would "strike an agreement with the Dagestanis and move the machines onto Dagestani territory, near the administrative border."

Nezavisimaya gazeta on August 9 interpreted Ramzan Kadyrov's sudden burst of Islamic fervor as being inspired more by politics than religion. Noting that Kadyrov made these decisions while Chechen President Alu Alkhanov was on vacation and Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov was on a train tour of Russia, leaving Kadyrov temporarily in charge as the republic's acting president, the newspaper's Andrei Riskin and Maria Bondarenko pointed out that Alkhanov's presidential term ends in three years and that whoever has control over the Chechen parliament, which will be elected this fall, will determine who will succeed Alkhanov. "Independent experts in Chechnya believe that all of these actions have nothing whatever to do with the struggle for purity of faith," they wrote of Ramzan Kadyrov's bows toward Islam. "Simply, Kadyrov, who himself loves to organize dog fights and stays at the billiard table for hours on end…started the battle for the electorate on the eve of this fall's Chechen parliamentary elections."

SOME RUSSIAN MUSLIMS DEMUR

The Chechen Muslim clerics' declaration of an anti-Wahhabi jihad was by no means welcomed unanimously by their fellow Russian Muslim leaders. Gazeta on August 5 quoted Shaykh Nafigulla Ashirov, supreme mufti of the Asian part of Russia, as saying that given the lack of a legal definition of Wahhabism in current Russian legislation, the jihad calls cannot have a legislative effect. "Wahhabism says nothing about a call for terror," he said. "It is a trend in Islamic thinking, not a tactic for waging a struggle. There are no bans on thought in contemporary legislation." Ismagil Shangareyev, mufti of Orenburg Oblast and director of the Islamic Human Rights Center, told Ekho Moskvy radio that the anti-Wahhabi jihad was a "provocation" and that it was utterly impermissible to make such high-profile statements: "It is fraught, because anyone could be accused of this virtual Wahhabism," he said. "It is reminiscent of 1937, when people were branded Trotskyites who didn't even know who Trotsky was or what the concept of ‘Trotskyism' was…Wahhabism, according to the reference books, is the ideology that rules in Saudi Arabia. So are they going to declare a jihad against the inhabitants of Saudi Arabia?"

Aleksei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center predicted that the jihad declaration would have little effect. "The pro-Russian section of Chechen society is not keen on Islam, and it [thus] cannot…mobilize it," Gazeta quoted him as saying in its August 5 edition. "The [separatist] gunmen will only laugh at the fact that one more former Komsomol member has declared a jihad against them." Malashenko suggested the jihad call was a response to the interview with Shamil Basaev aired on the ABC television network in the United States.

ZYAZIKOV ALSO CONSIDERS GAMBLING BAN

Ingushetia, meanwhile, might follow its neighbor in banning gambling. Moskovsky komsomolets on August 10 quoted Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov as saying he had received a request from the republic's clergy and social organizations to close down gaming establishments. "If things go much further, there will be more gaming establishments in the North Caucasus than in Las Vegas," Zyazikov said, adding that games of chance do not jibe with the Ingush mentality. Kavkazky Uzel reported on August 8 that an appeal from Ingushetian community representatives and representatives of the republic's elders to Zyazikov, along with the republic's premier and People's Assembly, declared that "games of chance highly negatively influence the spiritual moral condition of society" and called on the Ingushetian authorities to take harsh measures to limit the activity of gaming clubs. Ingushetia's religious leaders, the website reported, believe that "gaming mania" not only negatively influences the rising generation but also contradicts the norms of Islam, which put gambling on the same level as narcotics and alcohol addiction.

Kavkazky Uzel also quoted Khasan Atigov, chairman of the Ingush All-National Union "Daimohk" as saying: "Possibly from the economic point of view gaming establishments bring some revenue to the budget, however we cannot forget that over-indulgence in games of chance negatively influence the moral condition of society and degrade the youth. And this is not only our opinion: a majority of the society and the clergy of the republic believe this. We also receive complaints from the parents of young people who spend a lot of money in game parlors and go into debt. Considering the situation, we appealed to the government and the People's Assembly with the proposal to create a joint commission to study this issue. It is necessary to develop special legislation banning or limiting the activity of gaming establishments in Ingushetia." Atigov added, however, that such measures should not violate the rights of entrepreneurs. "The problem should be resolved with joint efforts, by means of beliefs and compromises."

SECURITY TIGHTENED ON GROZNY ATTACK ANNIVERSARY

Chechen authorities tightened security around the republic on August 6, the ninth anniversary of the seizure of Grozny by rebel forces, Russian news agencies reported. Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov had the previous day dismissed concerns about possible rebel attack on the capital to mark the anniversary, saying that August 6 would be a day like any other.

But while the feared attack on Grozny failed to materialize, the fact that it was a day like many others was not much comfort. Citing unnamed sources in Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, Agence France-Presse reported on August 7 that nine Russian soldiers were killed and another nine wounded in clashes with rebels over August 6-7. According to the news agency, four Russian soldiers were killed and four wounded in 19 separate attacks on Russian military positions, while three others were killed and two wounded when separatists fired on a military truck near the city of Vedeno. One soldier was killed and another three wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine near Grozny, while another soldier was killed in the capital while trying to disarm an explosive device.

Federal forces sustained further losses on August 8, AFP reported. Three policemen died when their vehicle hit a landmine outside Grozny, while another Russian soldier was killed and one wounded in a blast in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district that same evening. Four soldiers were wounded when their convoy was ambushed in the Nozhai-Yurt district, while three more were wounded in ten separate attacks on government positions. Itar-Tass reported on August 9 that a federal serviceman was gravely wounded when rebel forces shelled a police station in Chechnya's Shatoi district.

The Associated Press reported on August 9 that gunmen sprayed bullets at a car in Grozny, killing one person, wounding a child in the head and setting the vehicle ablaze. The news agency quoted a police official as saying that three members of the security force controlled by Ramzan Kadyrov were believed to have been in the car. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the force, the AP reported.

The Chechen police, meanwhile, reported on August 7 that a suspected rebel field commander named Abubakar Khasuev, described as a "brigade general of the armed forces of Ichkeria," had been arrested in what police sources told Interfax was a "meticulously planned operation" in Grozny. However, Kommersant reported on August 8 that there was evidence Khasuev "did not represent any danger inasmuch as he had led a completely peaceful lifestyle for a long time already." The newspaper quoted a Chechen special services source as saying that Khasuev had been in Aslan Maskhadov's inner circle before the second war in Chechnya but broke with the Chechen rebel leader for taking too "conciliatory" a line toward the rebel movement's "Wahhabi" wing.

Interfax reported that two other rebels were detained over August 5-7 – one in the Shelkovskoi district village of Voskresenovsky and the other in the Urus-Martan district of village of Goyty. Police said the second suspect was possibly an associate of rebel warlords Shamil Basaev and Doku Umarov. Interfax reported on August 5 that police had killed a militant in a shootout in the Shelkovskoi district village of Sary-Su. Another militant managed to escape. NTV television reported on August 6 that a criminal case had been opened against a police officer who was arrested in Grozny on suspicion of supplying guns to the rebels.

Kavkazky Uzel reported on August 4 that special-purpose units belonging to the Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and the Interior Ministry had launched a large-scale operation against rebel forces in the mountains of southern Chechnya. A source told the website that eight rebels were killed and three captured in the operation, while two federal servicemen were killed and six wounded.

BOROZDINOVSKAYA AND THE ROLE OF REVENGE

In a series of three articles about the June zachistka in the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya, Moskovsky komsomlets correspondent Vadim Rechkalov confirmed earlier reports that the early June operation – in which homes were burned, at least one resident killed and eleven abducted – was carried out by the Vostok battalion, commanded by Sulim Yamadaev, under the auspices of the GRU. Also echoing earlier reports, Rechkalov wrote that the sweep in Borozdinovskaya was carried out in revenge for the murder of a forester who was the father of a Vostok unit member. Rechkalov reported further that those responsible for this murder, as well as the eleven Borozdinovskaya residents who were abducted and remain missing, either belonged to rebel units or were relatives of militants. Thus what happened in Borozdinovskaya, Rechkalov concluded in his July 5 article, was not the "plundering" of a village, but a "targeted" mopping up operation. "True, they operated according to the laws of war-time, which in no way fit it with the civilized criminal code," he added. More than a thousand residents of Borozdinovskaya, who are ethnic Avars, subsequently fled the village into neighboring Dagestan, but most eventually returned.

One may or may not accept Rechkalov's characterization of the Borozdinovskaya raid, but what is perhaps most significant about these three articles on the incident is their description of the role that revenge is playing in the Chechen conflict. In his July 5 article, Rechkalov quoted his guide and bodyguard, Khusein, who described how he is seeking to avenge the death of his younger brother, a policeman, who was murdered by unknown gunmen a half-year ago. "Before, if someone murdered your brother, you had to find the person who killed him and also kill [that person]," Khusein said. "Now, everything is different. There are more murders, more weapons…It is hard to figure out from which barrel flew the bullet that killed your brother. And the blood feud has changed. Imagine that bandits have killed a policeman. His brother gets a job in the police or joins the ‘kadyrovtsy'. Not because he wants to serve there, but to get revenge. But he doesn't know specifically who killed his brother. And so he simply kills any bandit, the first one he comes across. Or two. This cannot be considered a blood feud in the way our forefathers understood it, but the person feels better inside. But now the brothers of these bandits that he killed must also get revenge. They, perhaps, had not intended to take up arms, but now they join a gang to get revenge. And they also don't know who specifically killed their brothers; they only know that a policeman or a kadyrovite did it. And they kill the first policemen they run into. One or two. And this is improper revenge, but they feel a bit better. And the relatives of these murdered policemen must get revenge. Etcetera. A geometric progression."

On August 2, a source in the military prosecutor's office of the Combined Federal Forces in the North Caucasus denied earlier reports that the Vostok battalion's reconnaissance chief, Khamzat Gairbekov, had been detained as part of the investigation into the Borozdinovskaya raid. However, the source told Interfax that charges had been filed against the commander of one of the Vosotok battallion's units in connection with the case.

NOVOSELSKOE VIOLENCE: PROPERTY BRAWL OR INTER-ETHNIC BATTLE?

A mass brawl took place on August 6 in the village of Novoselskoe in Dagestan's Khasavyurt district between a group of young people from the village and another group of young people from the nearby village of Moksob. According to various reports, anywhere from six to more than 20 people were hospitalized with injuries sustained from the fight. Seven people were arrested in the incident. The Regnum news agency reported that according to one version of events, the brawl was the result of disputes over land plots. The agency noted, however, that a majority of residents of Novoselskoe are Chechens while a majority of Moksob's residents are Avars, and that the violence may have been sparked by an argument over the raid in Borozdinovskaya in early June.

Dagestani deputy minister for national policy, information and external relations, Zikrulla Ilyasov, denied that ethnic hostilities played any role in brawl, Kommersant reported on August 10. Chechen officials, however, took a different view. On August 9, Chechnya's State Council issued a statement expressing "deep concern" over the incident, Interfax reported. "In spite of a statement by the Dagestani Interior Ministry that the incident was of a domestic nature, we are worried by the fact that the parties to the conflict were divided along ethnic lines," the council stated, adding that it was possible that "the actions of the instigators were of a provocative nature and were designed to destabilize the situation in the region." According to Interfax, Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov on August 8 expressed concern at a possible worsening of inter-ethnic relations in a number of villages in Dagestan. Novoselskoe, he said, was founded by Chechen-Aukhovtsy, several thousand of whom have lived there "since time immemorial." "These people didn't arrive there from anywhere, they are indigenous to these areas and found themselves on the administrative territory of Dagestan when the Chechens were deported to Siberia in 1944, and after their return, the administrative border had already been drawn, placing these villages inside Dagestan," Dzhabrailov said.

Meanwhile, fresh bombing attacks in Dagestan targeted various infrastructure and businesses. A bomb went off at an electric power sub-station on the outskirts of the village of Mogilyovskoe in the Khasavyurt district on August 4. The facility was damaged but no one was injured. A bomb exploded in a building belonging to a transportation firm in Makhachkala on August 3, wounding an employee and a policeman, RIA Novosti reported. That same day, an explosive device consisting of a hand-grenade and a timer was discovered at the Mozdok-Kazimagomed gas main outside Makhachkala and defused, Itar-Tass reported.

BRIEFS

--A STREET NAMED KADYROV
Main streets in Chechnya's towns and villages will be renamed after the late Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov to celebrate his birthday on August 23, Russian news agencies reported on August 8. Interfax quoted Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Belkhis Baydaeva as saying that towns and villages had been sending proposals to the Chechen government asking to name one of their central streets after Kadyrov and that many towns and villages locals had at their own initiative already put up signs with Kadyrov's name on some streets. In addition, Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov announced that two monuments to the elder Kadyrov made by the controversial Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli will be unveiled in Grozny and Gudermes on August 23, newsinfo.ru reported. Tsereteli will receive one of the Chechen government's highest awards.

--REBEL LEADER REMEMBERS KING FAHD
Chechen rebel president Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev sent a condolence message to Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz on the demise of King Fahd, Chechenpress reported on August 3. According to the separatist website, the rebel leader noted that the late Saudi monarch had repeatedly called on the international community to put an end "to the genocide of the Chechen people." "The short-sighted policy of the League of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which rested upon the principles of complacency with the Kremlin regime and infringed on the rights of Russia's 20 million Muslims, prevented the voice of this authoritative leader of the Islamic world from being heard," Sadulaev said in his statement. He added that he hoped that Saudi Arabia "will pursue a favorable policy towards the tiny Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which protects its state independence by waging one of the bloodiest wars in the modern history of the world against the giant Russian empire."
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