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Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 3
January 18, 2007

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Observers Differ Over How Many Rebels Took Amnesty Offer…
* …And What the Amnesty Actually Accomplished
* Memorial Activist Says “Death Squads” Operate in Chechnya
* Briefs
* Yaseen Rasulov: Dagestan’s Rebel Scholar
By Andrei Smirnov
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OBSERVERS DIFFER OVER HOW MANY REBELS TOOK AMNESTY OFFER...

The Russian government’s amnesty for rebels in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus, announced last July by Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Nikolai Patrushev acting in his capacity as head of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK), expired on January 15.

Estimates varied regarding how many militants took advantage of the amnesty, which was offered to those who had not committed grave crimes. Interfax, on January 15, quoted an unnamed NAK official as saying that 546 people had taken the amnesty offer. The official told the news agency that practically all of those who had asked for amnesty belonged to various rebel “gangs,” and that around 200 had participated in “sabotage-terrorist acts,” four were on the federal wanted list and three were women who had been prepared for use as suicide bombers. The NAK official told Interfax that the amnesty applicants ranged in age from 16 to 75, although most were between 20 and 45. According to the news agency, among those who surrendered were the rebel “emirs” of the city of Argun, the “Sharia Guards” of Chechnya’s Shelkovsky district, and relatives of the late rebel commander Salman Raduev, the former president of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev (also deceased) and Dokku Umarov, the current ChRI president. Interfax also reported that two high-level rebels, Isa Aliev and Islam Sharipov, had asked for amnesty, along with Turpal-Ali Kaimov, a leader of the Chechen diaspora in Oslo, Norway.

The Associated Press, on January 15, quoted an unnamed official with the office of Dmitry Kozak, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Southern Federal District, as saying that more than 500 militants had turned themselves in during the amnesty period, including two bodyguards and the driver of slain Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, who had surrendered during the weekend of January 13-14.

The New York Times, on January 16, quoted Chechnya’s deputy prosecutor, Nikolai Kalugin, as saying that 467 former militants had registered for amnesty, and that there had been a “rush of fresh applicants” over the prior four weeks as the deadline neared. Of the 467 former militants who had registered for amnesty, 305 had been granted amnesty and 19 were under criminal investigation because they were suspected of committing crimes too serious to waive, Kalugin said. He told the newspaper that the remaining cases were still under review and that the total number of applicants might grow as up-to-date tallies are included from the neighboring republics. On January 15, The Associated Press quoted Dagestan’s Interior Ministry as saying that 40 militants had surrendered in Dagestan since the amnesty was announced last July.

Kavkazky Uzel, on January 15, quoted an unnamed Chechen Interior Ministry officer as saying that “more than 400” rebels had surrendered under the amnesty. The website reported that according to “various Chechen force structures,” 430 to 470 rebels and rebel accomplices had given up, including more than 30 since the start of January alone.

ITAR-TASS reported on January 16 that “more than 460” rebels had used the amnesty, including six who put down their weapons on January 15, the amnesty’s final day. RIA Novosti, for its part, quoted Federation Council deputy chairman and NAK member Aleksandr Torshin on January 16 as saying that about 550 people had surrendered under the amnesty.

…AND WHAT THE AMNESTY ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED

Predictably, Federation Council deputy chairman and NAK member Aleksandr Torshin, like many Russian officials and members of the pro-Moscow administration, hailed the amnesty as a success. “We can already say that, compared to the previous amnesty campaigns, this one proved to be the most effective, both in terms of the number of militants who desired to return to peaceful life and in terms of the amount of armaments surrendered,” Torshin told RIA Novosti. Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov also said that a large number of militants had put down their weapons, calling the amnesty a “great success in the process of stabilizing the situation in Chechnya,” Finmarket.ru reported on January 15.

Kavkazky Uzel on January 15 quoted Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov as saying: “If 400 well-armed militants with experience in guerrilla actions saved as many lives [by giving up], and remain alive themselves, then it is possible to call the amnesty that just passed effective. It was a well thought-out action, aimed at, above all, that part of the youth which fell under the influence of a hostile ideology and knows nothing other than weapons.” Kadyrov added, “At first, the militants had a wait-and-see attitude [toward the amnesty]. In time, however, the number of those who voluntarily put down their weapons began to grow.”

The mufti of Chechnya, Sultan-Khadzhi Mirzoev, thanked the Russian and Chechen political leadership for carrying out the amnesty. “Quite a few militants…laid down their arms, returned to peaceful life, and this is a tremendous success for the Russian president and our Chechen leadership,” Kavkazky Uzel on January 16 quoted Mirzoev as saying, “I thank everyone who took part in this action, to the representatives of the security agencies and, of course, to our clergy. The imams of the mosques did a lot of work…[They] helped those who wanted to surrender approach the law-enforcement bodies.”

Others expressed skepticism about the amnesty’s results. “Around 500 militants giving up sounds, of course, very serious,” Kavkazky Uzel on January 15 quoted an unnamed Chechen political scientist as saying. “But, at the end of the day, only former members of the armed groups surrendered to the authorities. There was practically no one who came out of the woods with their weapons in hand. And, at the same time, so-called ‘accomplices’ – that is, persons who rendered one or another service to the militants (delivered them food, medicine; provided lodging, and so on) were counted among those who laid down their arms. It is also necessary to note that participants in the armed formations that fought in the first military campaign on the territory of the [Chechen] republic were ‘amnestied.’ Many have probably already forgotten, but these people, just like the federal servicemen, were amnestied after hostilities ended in 1996.”

Not surprisingly, the Chechen separatists were even more dismissive of the amnesty’s results. “The spectacle of the ‘amnesty’ is a bloody performance that civilians who are kidnapped by the occupiers…are forced take part in,” the separatist Chechenpress news agency wrote on January 16. “That is what happened to the brother of ChRI President Dokku Umarov. The occupiers displayed Akhmad Umarov on television, announcing that he had ‘surrendered,’ without even editing out his statement that he had been detained. After that, nothing was known about his location. Neither was anything known about the location of his aged father, who was also seized by the occupiers.” Chechenpress wrote that the practice of taking Chechen civilians hostage gathered momentum when, in November 2004, then Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said that authorities should be allowed to detain relatives of terrorists by force as a “counter-hostage-taking” measure. “Such actions by the Russian side give the Chechen side the absolute right to [deliver] an appropriate response,” Chechenpress wrote. “The Chechen side found and will find the means to effectively counter Russian terrorism.” The Associated Press, on January 16, reported that a statement posted on the rebel Kavkaz-Center website called the amnesty “the latest stage of propaganda in an endless sequence of disinformation, which Moscow has used for many years, offering it as reality.”

On January 11, four days before the amnesty deadline, Nezavisimaya gazeta questioned the effectiveness of the amnesty, given that large numbers of former rebels are joining the republic’s law-enforcement agencies. The newspaper noted that a former rebel fighter, Ibragim Dadaev, who switched to the federal side in 2003 and whose brother once served in Djokhar Dudaev’s presidential guard, had recently been named the new commander of the Chechen Interior Ministry’s patrol-sentry service (Chechnya Weekly, January 11). Nezavisimaya gazeta noted that normally, only senior officers who have served in Interior Ministry bodies for at least 10 years are appointed to the post of commander. The newspaper quoted Rostov political scientist Vasily Petrov as saying that “representatives of the local elite” in Chechnya appear to have used the amnesty to fill the ranks of local “armed detachments” and that the rebels, in turn, may have used this opportunity to place their members into these detachments without being properly vetted. This means that the amnesty may thereby have helped “legalize former murderers and terrorists,” Nezavisimaya gazeta quoted Petrov as saying. “The degree to which this will help to bring about a curtailment of the conflict and conciliation in the region remains in serious question,” he said.

It is worth noting that Kavkazky Uzel, citing Newsru.com, reported on January 15 that Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said that more that 7,000 rebels have surrendered since 2001, and that 5,000 of these have found employment, “including in the executive branch and law-and-order organs.”

On January 16, Kommersant quoted Geidar Dzhemal, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia, as saying that the amnesty was developed “exclusively in the interests of Ramzan Kadyrov.” “It is obvious that nothing has changed in the North Caucasus,” Dzhemal said. “In the KBR [Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria], repression against religious youth continues, and that means that the ranks of the resistance are being replenished. In Dagestan, the confrontation between the MVD and society has only intensified. And in Chechnya itself, nothing has changed. Take a look, who surrendered there? People who had not fought; someone’s relatives [or] acquaintances, whom they persuaded to pretend they were putting down their arms so that Ramzan Kadyrov could declare that the [rebel] underground has been crushed. They, above all, wanted the amnesty to deflect society’s attention away from Chechnya. But the confrontation in Chechnya has not come to an end.”

Kommersant also quoted Oleg Orlov, head of the Memorial human rights center, as questioning the amnesty’s effectiveness: “When participation in military actions against federal forces is regarded as a crime that isn’t covered under the amnesty, it is impossible to understand whom the amnesty was directed at,” he said. “To those in the ranks of the militants who boiled the kasha?”

Even some officials have conceded that there were problems with the amnesty. Chechen Deputy Prosecutor Nikolai Kalugin told the New York Times that most of those who sought amnesty were low-level militants or commanders leading formations of no more than six or seven fighters, and that no prominent separatists had sought amnesty. He also said that active rebels had made threats against the families of those who were contemplating surrender. “There was a powerful counter-action by the side of those who did not want the amnesty program to take effect,” the newspaper quoted Kalugin as saying. “People were threatened by those odious figures who will never surrender.”

State Duma Deputy Frants Klintsevich also expressed concern about the rebels who have not surrendered. “Not one of those whom we call irreconcilable – and there are about 200 of them in the special services’ card index – will, under any circumstances, lay down their arms,” he said. “These people can only be destroyed. The task of the amnesty was to pull away from them those who had ended up there by chance, and that was done. But one cannot call this amnesty very effective: the gang formations in Chechnya remain.”

There were also different views over whether or not the amnesty should be continued. The mufti of Chechnya, Sultan-Khadzhi Mirzoev, spoke in favor of extending it. “Even if it saves only one person, this [process] must be continued,” Kavkazky Uzel, on January 16, quoted him as saying. “Today, we call on everyone who did not manage to surrender to return to a peaceful life anyway. We will help them return, we will be intermediaries – naturally, as much as permitted by the law.”

President Putin’s adviser on the North Caucasus, Aslambek Aslakhanov, also said the amnesty should be extended, adding that it should be aimed at those who are sincere resistance fighters – distinct from those he called “bandits.” “Among the members of the gang formations, both in Chechnya and abroad, are those who believed in the idea of Chechen independence; they were mistaken and they already understand that,” Kommersant on January 16 quoted Aslakhanov as saying. “They must not be treated like bandits. There is another category – the real scum, for whom human life is worth nothing. Among those who are fighting, it is necessary to distinguish between the bandits and the idealists. And if a person went into the woods because they killed his mother, there must be a different approach toward him than toward those who simply went to murder.”

According to Kommersant, State Duma Security Committee Chairman Vladimir Vasilyev said on January 15 that the amnesty would not be extended. On the other hand, the newspaper quoted Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov as saying that those seeking amnesty and had not made the January 15 deadline could do it at any time, given that Russia’s Criminal Code “contains a mechanism that permits freeing them from criminal responsibility.” Still, it is not clear exactly where Kadyrov stands on this issue. The Associated Press, on January 15, quoted him as saying that the rebels should not be given another chance to give up. “I believe it is the last amnesty,” Kadyrov said, according to Interfax, adding that while “people should be forgiven and return to peaceful life,” the remaining militants “are enemies of the people, enemies of Islam.”

MEMORIAL ACTIVIST SAYS “DEATH SQUADS” OPERATE IN CHECHNYA

The bi-weekly newspaper Novaya gazeta ran an article on January 11 entitled, “Zapasnye Organy” (Spare Organs), which claimed that Russia’s special services had created secret structures under the cover of private security firms and special services’ veterans groups to carry out assassinations. The article’s author, Igor Korolkov, had written an article in the weekly Moskovskiye novosti back in 2002 concerning a 70-page document he had obtained, which detailed how such structures should be set up. According to the document, the putative purposes of such secret structures included combating criminal gangs and, as the document stated, “the neutralization or physical liquidation of leaders and active members of terrorist, intelligence-diversionary groups that are conducting war against the federal authorities.” Korolkov wrote in Novaya gazeta that recent events, including the assassination of Novaya gazeta correspondent Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow and the poisoning death of former FSB Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Litvinenko, “compels us to turn to that document once again and interpret it in a new way.”

Referring to Korolkov’s articles in 2002 and earlier this month, Aleksandr Cherkasov of the Memorial human rights group wrote on Ej.ru, the website of Yezhednevny zhurnal, on January 13, “For me, by virtue of the specific character of my many years of work in the Caucasus, both then and now, it is absolutely obvious: certain parallel extra-governmental structures are operating in Russia and in Chechnya. In fact, a system of ‘death squads’ has been operating there since 2000. People are kidnapped; they disappear. In all of the official structures, relatives are told by officials that they know nothing about the abductions. And later on, in the best-case scenarios, they discover the body. Most often, they find nothing.”

Cherkasov recalled the case of the mass grave found near the Russian military base at Khankala, outside of Grozny, in February 2001 (Chechnya Weekly, February 27, 2001). “More than 50 bodies; all of those people who were identified had been detained at different times and in different places,” he wrote. “There were signs of cruel torture and violent deaths. The circumstances of place, time and modus operandi proved the existence of a system. People are abducted at different times and in different places, and then they wind up together near a federal base.” Cherkasov wrote that the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling against Russia last year in several cases of disappearances in Chechnya means that “the existence of such illegal structures” and “the responsibility of the state for the abduction and death of these people” have been “officially recognized by international judicial authorities.”

Last July, in the first ruling of its kind on a disappearance case in Chechnya, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia guilty of violating the “right to life” of Khadzimurat Yandiev, who disappeared in February 2000 after a Russian general ordered him shot. The court also ruled that the victim’s mother, Fatima Bazorkina, who brought the suit against Russia, had suffered inhumane treatment because of the uncertainty surrounding her son’s fate and ordered Moscow to pay her 35,000 euros (around US$44,500) as compensation (Chechnya Weekly, July 27, 2006). In November of last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated the right to life, liberty and security of three other kidnapping victims – Said-Khusein and Said-Magomed Imakaev, and Nura Said-Aliyevna Luluyeva. Said-Khusein Imakaev was abducted in December 2000, and his father, Said-Magomed Imakaev, was kidnapped in June 2002, after filing a complaint about Said-Khusein’s abduction with the European Court of Human Rights in February 2002.

“The case of the Imakaevs…is simply unique,” Aleksandr Cherkasov wrote for Ej.ru. “In 2000, the son was taken from a checkpoint and disappeared. The father filed a complaint with the Strasbourg court. After that, the father also disappeared. This case is not the only one of its kind. In all of these cases, the interest of the federal side – that is, the state – in the deaths of these people is clear. Which is to say that the very thing Igor Korolkov is writing about – the extra-judicial killing of people ‘in the state’s interest’ – exists.”

BRIEFS

- MEDVEDEV OPTIMISTIC ABOUT CHECHNYA’S DEVELOPMENT

During a meeting with journalists in the Southern Federal District on January 17, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the social and economic situation in Chechnya in 2006 gives reason for moderate optimism, ITAR-TASS reported. Asked about the implementation of national projects in Chechnya, Medvedev said that the “current pace of construction in Chechnya is fairly good.” Medvedev, who oversees the implementation of priority national projects, said the Russian president and government had adopted decisions on the financing of economic and social reconstruction in Chechnya. “Obviously, Chechnya needs more investments than other regions,” he said. “But it is important to do this calmly, act effectively and make sure the money does not disappear.” Concerning education, Medvedev said, “It is important that people who work in schools and schoolchildren themselves do not feel an information gap, isolated from other Russian regions.” According to ITAR-TASS, authorities plan to connect 127 schools in Chechnya to the Internet in 2007.

- TRIAL OF OFFICERS ACCUSED OF MURDERING CHECHENS RESUMES

The trial of two Interior Ministry officers, Lieutenant Yevgeny Khudyakov and Lieutenant Sergei Arakcheyev, on charges of murder and abuse of office, resumed on January 16 at the North Caucasus district court in Rostov-on-Don, ITAR-TASS reported. The two are accused of murdering three construction workers in Grozny in January 2003. Juries have twice acquitted Khudyakov and Arakcheyev, but the military panel of the Russian Supreme Court has twice repealed the sentence and ordered a new hearing. The Constitutional Court ruled last April that cases of servicemen charged with perpetrating serious crimes in Chechnya must be heard by professional judges until the republic forms juries. According to ITAR-TASS, witnesses for the prosecution were questioned on January 16, including one who identified Khudyakov as having tortured him and shot him in the leg. As Kavkazky Uzel reported on January 16, Khudyakov and Arakcheyev were the commanders of a reconnaissance unit that conducted an operation near the Severny Airport on January 15, 2003. They allegedly blocked a road with an armored personnel carrier and then stopped a Volga car, detaining its driver, after which they stopped a Kamaz truck. Khudyakov allegedly shot the truck’s driver and the two passengers, after which he and Arakcheyev allegedly burned their bodies. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

- CHECHEN COP ALLEGEDLY KIDAPS CHILD IN INGUSHETIA

Interfax reported on January 17 that the prosecutor’s office in Ingushetia’s Sunzha district had opened a criminal case on the abduction of a small child, and that a Chechen policeman is suspected of being the perpetrator. “A local woman reported to the police that three unidentified people entered her house, snatched her one-year-old granddaughter and demanded 100,000 rubles for her release,” a local law-enforcement source told the news agency. A policeman from the Chechen Interior Ministry’s special riot task force (OMON) and an unemployed local female were subsequently detained in Grozny on suspicion of being behind the abduction, the source said. The child has been returned to her mother, and a search for another suspected accomplice in the crime is continuing.

- A REBEL AND A POLICEMAN DIE IN DAGESTANI SHOOTOUTS

Dagestani Interior Ministry spokeswoman Anzhela Martirosova told Interfax on January 16 that a militant had been killed in a shootout with police near the village of Kirovaul. “The clash took place at a small discarded summer cottage two kilometers outside of Kirovaul,” she told the news agency. “Police officers, following up on a tip-off, were fired upon. The gunman was killed in the clash. He was identified as Salman Magomedov, born in 1974.” A police officer was killed on the outskirts of the village of Aimaumakhi in Dagestan’s Sergokalinsky district on January 14 when unidentified persons fired at his car with automatic weapons. “The police officer died at the scene from his wounds, and his service pistol was stolen,” RIA Novosti quoted law-enforcement sources as saying. Police found 98 cartridges of various calibers at the scene of the attack. Meanwhile, Dagestan’s Supreme Court on January 17 sentenced Abdurahman Gadzhiev, who was the chief administrator of the republic’s Kizilyurt district, to 18 years in prison for organizing an assassination attempt on Magomed Magomedov, the head of Dagestan’s Gergebil district, the Associated Press reported. Magomedov’s driver was killed in the December 2005 attack on his car, but Magomedov himself was not in the car and was unhurt.

Yaseen Rasulov: Dagestan’s Rebel Scholar
By Andrei Smirnov

There is a widespread opinion that Wahhabism, or Salafism, a branch of Sunni Islam, is not a traditional religion for the North Caucasus. Many scholars, especially in Russia, say that the only form of traditional Islam in the region is Sufi Islam. (Sufism is a branch of Islam whose disciples focus mainly on a mystical perception of God, moral perfection and asceticism. A cult of sheikhs and saints is common for Sufism. A Sufi brotherhood, or tarikat, typically has a strict hierarchy where all members, or disciples, called murids, are completely obedient to their teacher, or sheikh.)

As for Wahhabism, it is now common to link it with al-Qaeda, which is spreading militant Islam throughout the world, including in the North Caucasus. In a report published by the state-owned RIA Dagestan news agency, Kaflan Khanbaev, a scholar with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ research center in Dagestan, said that Wahhabism was born in Chechnya and Dagestan only twenty years ago, and it is being supported by “international Islamic organizations and other outside forces that provide its adherents in the region with great financial and material assistance” (RIA Novosti – Dagestan, October 20, 2006). Khanbaev claimed that Wahhabism was unknown in the North Caucasus in the past. There are, however, people who dispute such assertions.

The Kavkaz-Center website recently posted a research paper written by a Dagestani scholar, Yaseen (Makhach) Rasulov, entitled, “Jihad in the North Caucasus.” Yaseen Rasulov was killed in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, on April 10, 2006 when police special forces stormed a house where a group of rebels, including Rasulov, was staying. Following the operation, Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov said that Rasulov had been the main propagandist of the regional rebel group, the Sharia Jamaat.

Rasulov’s “Jihad in the North Caucasus” would not be interesting if it were simply a propagandistic leaflet. However, he carried out his research strictly according to the rules of academic work. In it, Rasulov quotes many Russian scholars specializing in the history of the North Caucasus. Yaseen himself was an extraordinary man: for a time, he studied as a postgraduate student at Dagestani State University, and he spoke fluent Arabic and French. Before joining the insurgency, Rasulov was on the editorial staff of a local journal, The Islamic Civilization, and a correspondent for the Novoye Delo newspaper. He also had his own program on Islam on republican TV (Kavkazky Uzel, April 11, 2006).

Unlike many scholars, Rasulov, in his research, does not separate the modern situation in the Caucasus, especially in Dagestan, from its history. The main idea of “Jihad in the North Caucasus” is that the current insurgency in the region is a continuation of the 200-year-long resistance of the Caucasian nations against Russian colonization. Rasulov says that Wahhabism (Salafism), and not Sufi Islam, has been the driving ideology of the anti-Russian rebellion in the region since the very beginning, starting from the 18th century. Wahhabism was born on the Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century as a part of Sunni Islam. Its founder was Abdul-Wahhab, who is sometimes called the Martin Luther of the Islamic world. Wahhabism is famous for its violent religious radicalism, social orientation and militant rebel spirit. Wahhabism has often been used as a tool to unite a Muslim country, as was the case in Arabia in the 18th century, or to inspire a rebellion against foreign, non-Muslim invaders, as was the case in Algeria, the Muslim region of India and Indonesia.

Nevertheless, Wahhabism is only a part of a larger movement in Islam: Salafism, or the movement for a “purer Islam.” Salafism has a much longer history than Wahhabism. The founder of Salafism is Ahmad Ibn Taimiyah (1263-1368). He criticized Sufis and all other innovations in Islam. In his research, Yaseen Rasulov writes that the ideas of Ibn Taimiyah were already popular in Dagestan in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yaseen also discusses the Dagestani Islamic scholar Muhammad Al-Kuduki (1652-1717) and calls him the founder of the Salafi movement in the North Caucasus. Al-Kuduki spent several years in Arabia, Egypt and Yemen, and he was a disciple of the famous Salafi scholar Salikh Al-Yamani. According to Yaseen, Al-Kuduki spread Al-Yamani's ideas in Dagestan. Thus, Yaseen proves in his research that Salafism has a 300-year history in Dagestan, and Salafi notions, such as jihad against infidels, criticism of various Islamic schools regarded by Salafists as divisive sects and also criticism of Sufism, were already popular in the region in the 17th century. “Thus,” Yaseen writes, “the idea that Salafism or Wahhabism is extraneous to the Muslims of the North Caucasus is vain and one should talk only about a revival of Salafism in the North Caucasus in the early [19]90s.”

Yaseen says that all the leaders of the anti-Russian resistance in the history of the North Caucasus, starting with the Chechen Sheikh Mansur in the 18th century and the Dagestani imams Kazi-Mukhammad and Imam Shamil in the 19th century, were Salafists or Wahhabis, and not Sufis. Yaseen writes that Imam Kazi-Mukhammad quoted Al-Yamani and Abdul-Wahhab, but not any of the Sufi preachers, in his works. “An armed resistance or jihad has never been the core of the Tarikat (Sufi brotherhood),” Yaseen says. “Tarikat focuses on jihad of another kind – man curbing his flesh.” He points to the fact that Sufi leaders in Dagestan like Mukhammad Al-Yaragi never supported calls for jihad (an uprising against Russian authorities).

At the end of his research, Rasulov concludes that the current Chechen war that has already spread to other Caucasian regions is simply a continuation of the war between the Russians and the Caucasian nations that started in the 18th century.

Such an interpretation demands thoughtful attention if we want to comprehend the roots of the current security problems in the North Caucasus. Yaseen Rasulov’s research could help us understand the deep motivations of the young people in the North Caucasus who are joining the insurgency, and to see that their motivations may be much more complicated than just unemployment or the influence of radical Islamists coming from the Middle East.

Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North Caucasus. He is based in Russia.
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