Gordon M. Hahn is a senior researcher and visiting assistant professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California. He is the author of Russia's Islamic Threat (2007), Russia's Revolution From Above (2002), and numerous articles on Russian politics.

The past decade has seen a steady radicalization of Muslim separatist movements in the North Caucasus. What began in Chechnya as a nationalist struggle against Russian rule evolved under the influence of Arab jihadists into a struggle to establish an Islamic state throughout the "Muslim lands" of the Russian Federation. Ideological radicalization brought tactical radicalization as the jihadists employed mass murder of Russian civilians to chilling effect.

While the ideological and political radicalization of the Caucasus jihadists continues today, over the past few years they have displayed a progressive moderation in their tactics. Abandoning the spectacular suicide bombings and hostage seizures that reached a peak four years ago, they now favor a more traditional insurgent campaign that could prove effective in winning over converts and recruits among the population.

Tactical Reassessment

In recent years, the accumulated failures of jihadist movements worldwide (Afghanistan being their lone state-building "success") have sparked a sharp debate within the global jihadist movement about the utility (and sometimes the morality) of indiscriminate terrorist attacks against civilians. Prominent Egyptian jihadists, such as Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (aka Dr. Fadl), and Karam Zuhdi, have questioned and even renounced (albeit from prison) Osama bin Laden's high profile, large-scale terrorist attacks against the West as either ineffective or un-Islamic.[1] Even among those who accept the legitimacy of attacking civilians, there is an increasing belief that violence must be used surgically so as to weaken local regimes (or achieve some other concrete objective) without jeopardizing public support. Bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, famously admonished the late Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a 2005 letter for alienating Iraqi Sunnis with beheadings and other horrific practices.[2]

A similar reassessment may be occurring within the Chechen separatist/Caucasus jihadi movement. After a progression of devastating terrorist attacks in 2004 culminating in Beslan hostage siege, the mujahedin of the underground Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) largely stopped launching large-scale attacks on civilians. The suicide bombing in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, which killed 11 people last month was the exception that proved the rule - nearly four years had elapsed since the last suicide attack on civilians (and it is not clear that this one was officially approved).

The indiscriminate violence of the high profile terrorist campaign helped Moscow and its local republic administrations succeed somewhat in 'draining the pond' in 2006 and early 2007. Such violence reduced support for the jihadists among the population and strengthened the hand of the region's local Sufis, who argue that the Salafi radicalism leads to extremist violence and is alien to North Caucasus culture.

Of course, a host of other factors have contributed to this trend. Many of the principal architects of high profile terror attacks were killed by Russian forces, most notably Shamil Basaev (who masterminded the 1995 Budennovsk, 2002 Dubrovka, and 2004 Beslan mass hostage-takings/massacres). Prior to Basaev's death, then-ChRI President Aslan Maskhadov and his successor, Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, had pressed for the rejection of violence against civilians, but were either unable or unwilling to force Basaev and other commanders to cease employing them.

The new trend also reflects the dangers of exposure and attrition presented by gathering a large force. The last large-scale jihadi attack took place in the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in October 2005, when a large force of over 200 mujahedin killed 24 policemen and at least 12 civilians, while losing 92 of their own. By comparison, there were only a handful of operations mounted by 30 or more fighters this past summer, according to the mujahedin. Similar results can be achieved at less cost through multiple operations by smaller jihadi units.

New Tactics

The mujahedin now favor small mobile units, called special operational groups (SOGs), which allow for effective infiltration and quick withdrawal into the protection of the forests, the mountains, or sympathetic host communities. Except for the occasional vehicle-born IED or car-bomb attack, their tactics increasingly resemble those of revolutionary socialist and anarchist terrorists in late nineteenth century Russia. SOG missions consist primarily of targeted attacks on police and sometimes military and intelligence units and assassinations of military, police, intelligence, and civilian officials.

The CE has increasingly concentrated its resources on surgically targeted hit-and-run ambushes on enemy combatants. Russian vehicles transporting military, police, and intelligence personnel are a prime target of IED and mine attacks, as well as more conventional ambushes by mobile detachments of mujahedin, who engage the enemy under the cover of night or the daytime forest. SOGs also carry out hit-and-run attacks that target fixed security checkpoints, police stations, intelligence headquarters, and occasionally even military bases.

The Caucasus mujahedin have also been carrying out a systematic campaign of assassinations targeting local security officers and civilian officials, as well as private persons deemed by the jihadists to have rendered assistance to the "infidels." In June 2008, the mujahedin killed the MVD chief in the Dagestani town of Buinaksk, Magomedarip Aliev, who last year had led the successful manhunt and killing of the emir of the CE's Dagestan Front, Rappani Khalilov. In one recent week in Ingushetia, militants attacked but failed to kill the republic's government chairman, the deputy mufti (who is a close relative of Ingushetia president Murat Zayzikov), and the head of the town of Malgobek's criminal investigation administration. It has been reported that someone managed to plant a warning letter with three bullets inside the home of the pro-Moscow Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov.[3]

'Preventative, Explanatory' Work

A new innovation in the jihadists' tactics is "preventative explanatory work" conducted in conjunction with their operations.[4] Jihadi units disseminate theological-ideological propaganda when they enter villages to solicit material support and intelligence from the populace. Unlike their Islamist teachers and direct Caucasus jihadi predecessors, the CE jihadists openly reject violence against innocent civilians. Even one of the most militant jihadi combat jamaats, the Shariat Jamaat of the CE's Dagestan Front, makes a point of pledging to avoid casualties among innocents.[5]

However, as the CE's chief political ideologist, Movladi Udugov, acknowledged in a July 2008 interview, the jihadists also "demand observation" of their rigid interpretation of Islamic law.[6] Mobile detatchments of mujahedin and issue punishments, including executions of collaborators, Such operations were carried out this summer in Chechnya's villages of Khaltunni, Vedeno and Benoi - the latter associated with Kadyrov's teip (clan). In July, the mujahedin entered the Ingushetian village of Muzhichi and executed a group of suspected collaboraters, then lectured the villagers on the impermissibility of "drunkenness, drug use, and obscene behavior" and "cooperating with infidels and apostates."[7] Later that month, a jihadi unit in Ingushetia "physically punished" a coed "party of profligates" found drinking alcohol on the banks of the river Assa and warned them that they will be "punished severely" for a second infraction.[8] There was a time when these "profligates" might have fared much worse.

These efforts at persuasion, a logical accompaniment to the CE's Internet proselytizing,[9] do not clash as heavily with local Sufi Islamic practice as their past activities. Their injunction against alcohol consumption is fully consistent with Sufi practice and the popular mood (which is why it is observed even by the administration of pro-Moscow Chechen President Ramazan Kadyrov).

The abandonment of attacks on civilians suggests the Caucasus jihadists have learned that excessive violence can be counterproductive to their cause. Instead of the earlier indiscriminate, then intentional operations on civilians, they now emphasize, formally, that they are not about killing civilians and repeatedly warn them to stay away from the infidels and apostates for their own safety (because the latter may be under attack at any moment). Instead of the past's unorganized and sometimes murderous encounters with the civilian population, the jihadists are purposefully organizing teaching to civilians the proper Islamic life in accordance with their interpretation of Shariah law, and limiting the level of violence they use in enforcing that law among civilians.

The corruption, brutality, and abuses of power of local pro-Russian administrations in the Caucasus republics (particularly Chechnya under Kadyrov and Ingushetia under Murat Zyazikov) go a long way toward making the population receptive to the mujahedin. According to Udugov, villages frequently send emissaries and sometimes entire delegations into the forest to ask the jihadists for protection from the local regimes.[10]

Results

The Caucasus mujahedin seem to be taking the lead in drawing and enacting practical conclusions from the global jihadi reassessment and adopting new tactics to win the hearts and minds of the population; a battle that the jihadists seemed to be losing in 2006 and may have begun to turn around this past summer.

The CE's ideological, political, and strategic radicalization, combined with tactical moderation and a focus on winning hearts and minds, might be attracting growing (if still limited) support from the population.[11] Although difficult to verify, this past summer saw claims by local experts and the jihadists themselves that young people are more and more attracted to and joining the jihad and that several groups of tens of young men joined en masse. The CE has been reporting an overall increase in the number of volunteers for the jihad in 2008.[12] This is reflected in such high profile defections to the jihadi camp such as those of Sheik Sayid Buryatsky[13] and Salambek Dakhaev.[14] The mujahedin are able to move freely throughout much of the North Caucasus especially its mountainous regions. A recent posting by the Ingush mujahedin thanked the population for its support in providing safe houses, food, and moral support.[15] In a May 9 Krasnaya zvezda interview, Russia's commander of the Joint Group of Forces in the North Caucasus, Major General Nikolai Sivak lamented: "The local population either supports the bandit groups or has a neutral attitude toward them . . . If not for the local inhabitants' attitude, we would have finished with the bandit groups long ago."[16]

There is other evidence that the CE jihad is gathering strength. In some areas, especially Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, the frequency of jihadist attacks is sharply on the rebound after a decline in 2006.[17] In June 2008, Kabardino-Balkaria president Arsen Konokov told a group of the republic's top MVD officers that "the terrorist bands and formations in essence have declared open war . . . on the entire state" and that "(a)rmed attacks on colleagues in law enforcement organs and killings of them have become almost a daily phenomenon."[18]

Because the CE's ultraradical ideology, strategy and goals solidify its jihadi "credentials," its abandonment of high profile terrorist attacks has not hurt its fundraising from foreign Islamic sources. Indeed, the creation of the CE last fall coincided with a major fundraising campaign on Arab jihadi-oriented websites, led by the deputy emir of the CE's Majlis Shura, the Arab mujahed Abu Anas Muhannad.[19] Russian and Chechen law enforcement contend that the CE has received new flows of financing from abroad, including "sponsors" from unknown Arab countries.[20]

As the capacities of the CE mujahedin increase, they will likely be tempted to revert to more destructive tactics, perhaps even large-scale, high profile terrorism against civilians or the use of weapons of mass destruction. For now at least, the new tactics present a real challenge to Russia and its less than popular proxy governments in the North Caucasus. If the CE jihadists succeed in filling 'the pond' with Islamists and sympathizers with their new explanatory operations, then the job of reeling in new recruits for the jihad will be made easier. The larger the pool of radical Islamist believers, the more likely it is the CE will be able to attract new fighters, especially in conditions under which the difference in brutality between the CE jihadists and the increasingly authoritarian regimes in the North Caucasus narrows. The wave of springtime defections to the mountains by young Muslims and the rather effective mujahedin summer campaign were not lost on Moscow. The MVD announced that it would not be going ahead with a plan announced less than a year earlier to reduce its forces in Chechnya.[21]

Ultimately, Russian authorities will need to do more than they are doing beyond the sphere of law enforcement and security. Moscow must greatly strengthen the rule of law and socioeconomic development across the entire North Caucasus. Otherwise, a significant portion of Muslims in the region will continue to see the jihadists as the lesser of two evils and perhaps even begin to perceive them as a positive force and the wave of the future, and Caucasus Emirate will always have at least a foothold in the region.

Notes

  [1] See Lawrence Wright, The Rebellion Within, The New Yorker, 2 June 2008; Fawaz A. Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist (Orlando: First Harvest, 2007), pp. 219-20.
  [2] "Al Qaeda Tells Ally in Iraq To Strive for Global Goals," The New York Times, 7 October 2005.
  [3] See, for example, Glava Chechni Ramzan Kadyrov oproverg svedeniya o pokushenii, Kavkaz-uzel.ru, 30 July 2008, .
  [4]http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2008/07/27/59713.shtml
  [5] Press-reliz Dzhamaata 'Shariat', Kavkaz tsentr, 19 May 2008.
  [6] Prague Watchdog: Intervyu s Movladi Udugovym. 2 chast, Kavkaz tsentr, 31 July 2008.
  [7] Modzhakhedy proveli boevyie operatsii i prochitali sel'chanam lektsiyu, Kavkaz tsentr, 9 July 2008.
  [8] Press-reliz komandovaniya Obedinennogo Vilaiyata Kabardy, Balkarii i Karachaia, Kavkaz tsentr, 22 July 2008.
  [9] This typically includes long Islamist interpretations of the Shariah law, the Koran and Sunna written by or citing classical Islamist thinkers like Abul Ala Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb, and Ibn Taimiyyah. See, for example, Khava Beshtoev, Islamskaya tserkov' i zhrechestvo, Kavkaz tsentr, 29 June 2008.
  [10] Prague Watchdog: Intervyu s Movladi Udugovym. 2 chast," Kavkaz tsentr, 31 July 2008.
  [11] The CE and its predecessor organization, the ChRI, never release exact figures of mujahedin, but on occasion refer casually to more than a thousand or thousands. Chechen President Kadyrov absurdly claimed throughout 2006-07 that the jihadists had been reduced to a few tens of bandits isolated in mountain caves, but Russian and most local law enforcement and security officials estimate that there are at least 500 jihadist fighters operating in the North Caucasus. In February, deputy chief of the MVD Lieutenant General Arkadii Yedelev claimed there were 440 militants in Chechnya alone. "MVD: v Chechne deistvyuet ne menee 400 boevikov," Kavkaz-uzel.ru, 6 February 2008. In March 2008, commander of the MVD's Internal Troops, Gen. Nikolai Rogozhkin, cited the figure of 500 militants for the entire North Caucasus. "Nikolai Rogozhkin: na Severnom kavkaze ostalos do 500 boevikov," Kavkaz-uzel.ru, 26 March 2008.
  [12] Chechenskaya molodyozh ukhodit v gory. 25 chelovek ushlo is odnogo poselka 4 June 2008, 10:18, and VILAIYAT NOKHCHIICHO: Iz sela Avtury v gory ushli 15 molodykh parnei, 4 June 2008.
  [13] Sheik Buryatsky is an authoritative Muslim preacher and a particularly important catch for the CE. An ethnic Buryat (a traditionally Buddhist people) and reportedly a dynamic speaker, he studied Islam and was arrested for extremism in Egypt. According to the Saudi newspaper al-Hayat, Buryatsky's lectures are distributed on audio tape and admired across the Muslim world. On June 19, the CE's main website, Kavkaz-Tsentr, posted a video of Buryatsky seated next to CE emir Umarov and his chief naib (deputy) Supyan Abdulaev. Buryatsky declared his support for the CE's creation, its jihad, and Umarov, who he called "our emir." Al-Khaiyat': Imarat Kavkaz stal moshnym impul'som dlya musul'man, Kavkaz tsentr, 21 July 2008; VIDEO: Amir Dokka Abu-Usman i Sheikh Said Buryatskii obratilis' k musul'manam, Kavkaz tsentr, 19 June 2008.
  [14] Dakhaev, the former representative of the ChRI exiled government's representative in France and an authoritative figure among Checghen refugees there, declared his loyalty to Umarov and the CE and called on all of his "supporters and friends" to support the jihadists. Dakhaev Salambek prekratil sotrudnichestvo s zakaevskoi gruppirovkoi LPG, Kavkaz tsentr, 27 July 2008.
  [15] Informatsionnyo otdel VS IK vilaiyata G'alg'aiche, Poslednuu boi amira Barakata, Chechen Times, 30 October 2008.
  [16] Chechnya: mir prikhodit - problemy ostayutsya, Krasnaya zvezda, 20 May 2008
  [17] Since summer 2007 the Ingush mujahedin for the first time have been the leading force in the jihad sharply increasing the number of attacks over previous years. See Gordon M. Hahn, "The Jihadi Insurgency and the Russian Counterinsurgency in the North Caucasus," Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 1, January-February 2008, pp. 1-39. According to my count, for the first nine months of 2008 the mujahedin of the CE's Ingush Vilaiyat have reliably claimed 72 attacks, killing 64 and wounding 92. Non-jihadi sources reliably indicate, according to my count, that Ingush Vilaiyat's jihadists carried out 59 attacks, killing 19 and wounding 94. The "Vilayat of Kabardia, Balkaria and Karachaia" (VKBK) reports an influx of "new brothers" from the Kabard, Balkar, Karachai, Abazin, Adygei, Nogai and other ethnic Muslim groups. The VKBK's claim of three operations in May of this year marked a revival of the jihad's fortunes after a real lull in activity since the heydays of the 'Yarmuk Jamaat' in 2004-05. Press-reliz komandovaniya Obedinennogo Vilaiyata Kabardy, Balkarii i Karachaia, Kavkaz tsentr, 22 July 2008.
  [18] "MVD Kabardino-Balkarii soobshaet o zaderzhanii vos'mi posobnikov boevikov za polgoda," Kavkaz-uzel.ru, 16 July 2008.
  [19] Jihadi discussions on these sites referred to the CE as the "third emirate," Iraq and Afghanistan being the first two. "Militants Target Arabs in Massive Fundraising Campaign for Chechen Insurgents," Transnational Security Issues Report, 13 December 2007.
  [20] "Baranov: chislennost Vnutrennykh voisk v Chechne sokrashat'sya ne budet," Kavkaz-uzel.ru, 31 July 2008; "Alkhanov: boeviki aktivno otrabatyvayut arabskie den'gi v Chechne," Kavkaz-uzel.ru, 2 July 2008; Interview with commander of the Joint Group of Forces in the North Caucasus, Major General Nikolai Sivak in Aleksandr Tikhonov, Chechnya: mir prikhodit - problemy ostayutsya, Krasnaya zvezda, 20 May 2008; and "Bunin: 'Situation in Chechnya Tied to Foreign Financing'," Russia-Eurasia Terror Watch, 6 July 2008.
  [21] "Baranov: chislennost Vnutrennykh voisk v Chechne sokrashat'sya ne budet," Kavkaz uzel, 31 July 2008.