Chechnya:  Who are we fighting with?

Ramzan Kadyrov announced that in the next several days, the counter terrorism operations in Chechnya will be declared complete; a few days later the Kremlin declared that the counterterrorist operation in Chechnya was over. In order to understand what is, in the opinion of the Kremlin and Kadyrov, now concluded, one would do well to know what the Russian forces and special services have been dealing with in Chechnya since October of 1999, when the counterterrorism operation officially began.  The operation was presented as a response to the invasion of militants into Dagestan and the bombing of buildings in Volgodansk, Buynaksk, and Moscow.

Counterterrorism operations were not exactly another front against al-Qaeda:  Chechnya proved to be independent of the Global Jihad.  In Chechnya there were foreign mercenaries and foreign funds which were provided as war funds, but Chechnya still did not become a base for international terrorism. The reason for this was within the Jihadist movement:  instead of going to Chechnya after Afghanistan (where the Mujahedeen were involved in 1992 in Kabul, when it was hinted that, the services of “Brothers” were no longer needed), rallying around the Egyptians from the “Islamic Jihad” and “al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya,” the Arabs which in the years following would make up the framework for al-Qaeda went to Bosnia.

The first Arab Mujahedeen already appeared in Bosnia in 1992-almost immediately after Bosnian Serbs, with the support of Belgrade, revolted against the self-proclaimed government of the Bosnian Muslims. 

According to the expert Evan Kohlman, the Saudi Sheikh Abu Abdel Aziz, nicknamed Barbaros due to his fiery-red beard, became the leader of the Mujahedeen in Bosnia; a veteran of Afghanistan, he received the status of Amir, that is, commander.  The Egyptian Sheikh Anwar Shaban, the imam of the Islamic cultural institute in Milan (where he found political asylum after he called for the overthrow of the secular government of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt), became the commissioner.  The remaining three of five leaders were also Egyptians, they were followers of the blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the head of al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (members of which also repeatedly tried to kill the Egyptian President Mubarak).

Mujahedeen fought against the Serbians and Croats in Bosnia until 1995.  In this case, they weren't always on the same page as the Bosnian Muslims, who were obliged to endure them due to their suicidal courage in combat, and even more so because of the financial aid from Saudi Arabia, which could have stopped if the Arabs were asked to leave.

Specifically, the first bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, organized by Omar Abdel Rahman, was planned on the territory of Bosnia, as well as a series of terrorist acts in France (including attempts to hijack an airplane in Marcel in order to fly it into the Eiffel Tower).  Bosnia, not Chechnya, became a base on whose territory international terrorist groups planned terrorist actions and put them into action in both Europe and the United States.

Differing from Bosnia, there were almost no immigrants from North Africa in Chechnya.  The command positions were occupied by people from Saudi Arabia and Jordan.  Khattab, who was poisoned by the FSB in 2002, was born in Jordan.  Abu al-Walid, who succeeded him was a Saudi, as was Abu Omar al-Sayef, who filled the role of the spiritual leader of the Mujahedeen.  Abu Zaid, who fought in Ingushetia and financed the capture of the school in Beslan, was Kuwaiti (he died in February of 2005), Abu Hafs al-Urdani, the personal envoy of Zarqawi in Chechnya, was an immigrant from Jordan (he died in November 2006 ).  In the absence of ambitious Egyptians, members of the Saudi Arabian financier's family became commanders.  After the start of the war in Iraq, Arabs fighting in Chechnya almost completely vanished from its territory.  Organized, tactical, and technological terrorism in Chechnya depended little on international Jihadism: the most horrible terrorist actions, including hostage taking, were planned by Basayev, the Karachaevo-Circassian Jamaat was behind the bombings of buildings in Moscow in 1999, it also organized explosions in the Moscow Metro in 2004.  The use of jihadists in general appears to be Basayev's forte (if the first female Palestinian suicide bomber was Wafa Idris in Jerusalem in 2002, then the first female Chechen suicide bomber was Khava Barayeva in June of 2000).

Chechnya, not a base for international terrorism, at least since the 2006 reform of Basayev and Sadulayev, does not appear to be a zone for the perpetration of terrorist attacks, that is, attacks on the civilian population.

According to their own announcements, the militant organizations were restructured in the Spring of 2006: the fighters were transferred from a quasi-army structure (brigade, sector, and front),  into small groups - SOG (Special Operations Groups) of three to five people.  These groups began conducting targeted attacks on law enforcement personnel.  The reason for this was the same as in Ireland in the end of the 70s, where the IRA abandoned its army structure in 1977 (until then, the IRA militants were divided into companies, which usually consisted of 30 people, the companies were grouped into battalions, and in Belfast and Derry the battalions were grouped into brigades).  Due to growing pressure from the British army, and the constant leaking of information, it became difficult to maintain the secrecy of operations, in which at least 30 people were participating.  The IRA split the militants into cells.  The shooter, which was earlier known not only to the commander, but also to the demolitions expert, the supply person, and members of different squads, now is only in contact with the three to four members of their own cell.  The cells were named ASU (Active Service Units).  This new tactic became well known as the concept for "The Long War," which, in general, turned out to be quite apt as the Belfast agreement was signed only in 1998.

The IRA used the army structure for the same reason as the Chechens - in order to prove their combatant status.  Having abandoned this structure, they have lost claim to their combatant status, but by doing so, they became less dependent on the support of the civilian population - they no longer required many recruits from them (this is precisely the reason that by 2006, the notorious 500 militants, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported about, were less dangerous than the 70 militants of Kadyrov's system.

As a result of this in Chechnya after 2006, as in Ireland in the 1980s, militants and security officials are practically engaged with one another.  This Chechen version of the concept of a Long War requires fewer resources for the militants, which is very pressing while the attention of the main financial donors is riveted on Iraq and Afghanistan.

That said, the movement of ethnic militants has not been been controlled by the Chechens for a while:  the Karbardin Anzor Astemirov (Amir Saufulla) appears to be the main ideologue, commanding the Caucasian front is the Ingush Yevloyev (Magas).  The well-known missionary Said Buryatski's affiliation with the Jihad became the most well known propaganda success of recent times in 2008.  Since at least 2005, after the creation of the so-called Caucasian Front of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic, there is not a distinct Chechen separatism. 

After the October 2007 announcement about the establishment of the Caucasian Emirate, the situation was only exacerbated.  The most notable terrorist act of recent years was conducted outside of Chechnya, in Northern Ossetia (the bombing of a passenger bus at a police checkpoint in November of 2007 and the female suicide bombing of November 2008 in Vladikavkaz) and Stavropol  Territory (the December 2007 explosion of a bus in the Nevinnomyssk).  The most well known action of the "Special Operations Group" was also outside of Chechnya: the shooting of the Chief of the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime in January of that year, plus the attack on high-ranking employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Ingushetia.

The main question, to which it seems no one has an answer, is what Chechnya represents for Jihadists today, those jihadists who are prepared for a "Long War," are autonomous (do not depend on an influx of funds and recruits from outside), have disposed of Nationalism, and are moving into the wider field of Caucasian Islamism.  The militants themselves maintain that the mountainous regions of the republic have turned into zones ungoverned by Kadyrov, where militants are able to live not only in the forests, but in the towns as well. 

This may be considerably important for the entire Islamic underground in the Caucasus, as according to Islamic Law, Jihad may be announced only from territories "dar-ul-Islam, that is of land, living according to Sharia law and free from the authority of infidels.  Whether enabled or not in the absence of Russian forces, the mountainous part of Chechnya passes into the Russian version of the Pakistani FATA (The Federally Administered Tribal Areas), the uncontrollability of which for many years served as an excellent pretext for Musharraf in order to receive support from the USA (an adaptation for Kadyrov and the Kremlin?).  It can be said that in the Kremlin, on Zhitny street, and at the Lyubyanka it is not worth it to look for an answer to this question: since many operational units from the FSB and the MVD were sent into Chechnya before the decision concerning the conclusion of counterterrorism operations, apparently to extract information.

Published in Ezhednevny Journal 01.04.2009

http://www.agentura.ru/english/terrorism/chechnya/