CC BY
16
8. Ibragimov. Neft i geopolitika v sovremennom mire (na prim ere Kaspiiskogo regiona) [Oil and Geopolitics in the Modern World (on Example of the Caspian Region)]. Nauchno-politichesky zhurnal No 08(71), August, 2012.
9. Yuzny flang SNG... Op. cit.
10. Sredizemnomorye - Chernomorye - Kaspii: mezhdu Bolshoi Evropoi i Bolshim Blizhnim Vostokom [Mediterranean - Black Sea - Caspian Sea: Between Big Europe and Big Middle East] // Moscow, "Granitsa" Publishers, 2006, 216 pp.
11. S. Druzhevsky. K voprosu ob alternativnoi strategii Rossiiskoi Federatsii v sfere energeticheskoi politiki [On Alternative Strategy of the Russian Federation in the Sphere of Energy Policy].
12. R. Usmanov. Rol truboprovodnykh proektov i etnopoliticheskikh konfliktov v formirovanii geopoliticheskoi kartiny Kavkazskogo - Kaspiiskogo regiona [The Role of Pipeline Projects and Ethno-political Conflicts in Formation of Geopolitical Picture of Caucasian - Caspian Region] // "Vlast", 2011, No 10.
13. G. Chufrin, D. Zhailin. Natsionalnoye informatsionnoye agentstvo "Kazinform" [National Information Agency "Kazinform"]. Www.inform.kz.Lenta.ru.
14. G. Kudryashova. Instituty regionalnogo vliyaniya na federalnom urovne [Institutions of Regional Influence at Federal Level] // "Sotsialno-gumanitarniye znaniya," Moscow, 2011, No 7.
"Kaspiisky region: politika, ekonomika, kultura, " Astrakhan, 2012, No 4, pp. 333-339.
Igor Dobayev,
D. Sc. (Philosophy), South Federal University,
Rostov-on-Don
Alexander Ponedelkov,
D. Sc. (Political sciences), South Russian
Institute, Rostov-on-Don
TRENDS OF EVOLUTION OF TERRORISM
IN THE NORTH CAUCASUS
Islam is not monolithic in the North Caucasus, but is divided into two basic currents - Sunni and Shi'ite, and also Khanifite and Shafiite trends, as well as several ideological forms (traditionalism, fundamentalism, modernism). The main dividing line passes between
traditionalism and fundamentalism. Each of these currents and trends struggles for increasing its influence on believers.
Traditional Islam is represented by the institutionalized Muslim clergy - the administrative-managerial apparatus of religious organizations: spiritual boards of Muslims as well as mosques, educational institutions, etc., subordinate to them. These institutions are considered "official Islam," or "mosque Islam," which is typical of the eastern part of the region. But there is another institutionalized traditionalist group in the North-East Caucasus, supporters of "non-mosque Islam," who are represented by the fraternities of three Sufi taraqats headed by their leaders - sheikhs and ustaza.
This shows that traditional Islam in the region ("mosque" and "non-mosque") is full of contradictions which cannot but be reflected on the sentiments and views of rank-and-file believers, most of whom are traditionalist Muslims. North Caucasian traditional Islam exists outside the sphere of modernization processes going on in other Muslim regions of Russia, above all in the Volga area.
The main opponents of the traditionalists in the region are fundamentalists (Salaphites or neo-Wahhabis), whose ideal is return to the realities of the "golden age" of Islam (the period of life of the first three generations of Muslims, or the period connected with the life and activity of Prophet Mohammed and the four "righteous" caliphs), transfer of all walks of life on to the Sharia laws, and recreation of the state in the form of caliphate. The confrontation between the traditionalists and Salaphites has led to greater Islamization of the North Caucasian republics (especially in the eastern part). In the mid-1990s the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Daghestan strongly influenced by the Sufi fraternity began to fight the "Wahhabi" trend [1].
The process of politicization and radicalization of Islam in the North Caucasus has passed several stages.
The first, the beginning of the 1970s to early 1990s, when Salaphite groupings of young Muslims appeared in Daghestan influenced by Salaphites from abroad. Special services and law-enforcement agencies found them and tried to stem their activity.
The second, from early 1990s to 1994, when recreation and legalization of Daghestani Salaphite groupings took place; Islamist circles were set up where people studied theoretical and practical aspects of jihad in their Wahhabi interpretation. During that period, embassies of certain Muslim countries in Russia opened "cultural centers" which brought in and distributed Islamic literature among Muslims. Similar literature began to be published in big circulation in Russia. At that time missionaries, preachers and instructors arrived in Russia from abroad, and young Muslims from Russia went to foreign countries to receive a Muslim education. Daghestan was in the lead during these two periods.
The third, from December 1994 to the early 2000s, when the radicalization process of North Caucasian Islam was dominated by Chechnya. The two Chechen wars and a three-year interval between them were accompanied by the concentration of "mojaheds" from abroad, mainly Arabs, in that republic and serious financial and ideological assistance from foreign Islamist centers. Special training centers worked on the territory of Chechnya which were headed by the well-known Arab terrorist Emir Khattab, a man close to Osama bin Laden. In 1998 radical Islamists moved to Chechnya from Daghestan where they united with their counterparts from other North Caucasian republics. In 1999 the positions of Salaphites in Chechnya were so strong that they decided to switch over to open aggression and tried to invade Daghestan. But their units were crushed there.
The fourth, September 1999 to 2007, when the second Chechen war began and ended with the defeat of the combat units of separatists
and their switchover to guerilla war. At that period Chechnya was the center of radical Islamists, and jihad spread practically all over the North Caucasus The ideology of radical Islamism became quite popular in the region, and terrorist acts occurred more and more frequently, even outside the North Caucasian region. Moderate radicals were still present in the North Caucasus, but they gradually were switching over to the extremist positions.
The fifth, 2007 until the present time, when the virtually existing leader Doku Umarov has made public the new geopolitical project -"Imarat Kavkaz." According to it, the new state Imarat Kavkaz was created in the North Caucasus ruled on the Islamic principles of the old caliphates.
The sixth, the end of the first decade - beginning of the second decade of this century, when the influence of Imarat and its leaders was growing and spreading to other "Muslim" territories - the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, and first and foremost Tatarstan.
The seventh, the past year or two, when Islamist groupings have emerged in "Islamic enclaves" in non-Muslim parts of the country. They formed around mosques, which is a new tendency in the radicalization process, which could be compared to the spreading of metastases of Islamism over the country's territory. Similar processes have taken place in the United States and some countries of Western Europe [2].
Evidently, the latter three stages of the radicalization of Islam and Islamic movement directly touch not only the North Caucasus, but also other regions of Russia, form a qualitatively new structure of Islamic groupings, and prepare ground for elaborating more spectacular plans for changes in the political structure of the country.
On October 7, 2007, the new leader of the non-recognized Ichkeria (the new name of Chechnya given it by the separatists) Doku
Umarov announced the end of his presidential powers and appointed himself supreme ruler, or "amir of the mojaheds of the Caucasus," the leader of jihad, as well as the only legitimate power on all territories where there were mojaheds, that is, on very vast areas, some of which are situated very far from the North Caucasus, even Buryatia, in the Russian Far East [3]. Thus, the idea of national independence was replaced with the doctrine of the liberation from "the power of the infidels." As it was announced, the aim of the creation of Imarat Kavkaz was to establish the Sharia rule on the entire territory of the North Caucasus [4].
Thus, a big and autonomous network terrorist cluster has formed in the North Caucasus, which is united with similar network structure in different regions of the world by common ideology and aims [5]. It should be noted that a ramified network terrorist structure has taken shape in the region, which has even such specific institutions as courts, fiscal systems, and also executive authorities of various levels [6]. A considerable vitality of this system is ensured, among other things, by the merger of radical Islamic ideology with North Caucasian traditional social institutions and existing modern socio-political conditions. No wonder that it is so difficult for the Russian authorities to work out adequate measures to oppose religious-political extremism. They did not succeed in curbing terrorism in the region so far.
Under a strong influence from without, including the North Caucasus, radicalization of Islam has begun in the Volga area, primarily in Tatarstan. In 1993 the management of the "Yoldyz" madrasah signed an agreement with the "Taiba" charity organization in Saudi Arabia on rendering assistance to the educational process at the madrasah. It was turned into a training center of Islamic radicals. As a result, one of the graduates of this madrasah, Denis Saitakov, became a member of the group which organized terrorist acts in Moscow. Later, several
graduates from it were also found to be members of terrorist groups. Facts have been revealed of cooperation of heads of the madrasah with Chechen field commanders Basayev and Khattab, who have granted them an opportunity to acquire combat training in Chechnya [7]. Similar organizations of young Islamic radicals were discovered in Almetyevsk, Nizhnekamsk, Kukmor, as well as in some other places of Tatarstan in the early 2000 [8].
The history of Islamic terrorism in Tatarstan began with the first acts of terror on gas pipelines in rural districts in 2003-2005. Then "forest fighters" appeared in Nurlat district of Tatarstan where an armed gang of fundamentalists tried to organize an underground base in a local forest on the pattern of similar bases in the North Caucasus [9]. On November 25, 2010, units of the interior forces of Tatarstan commanded by the Minister for the Interior General A. Safarov smashed an armed bandits' group which wanted to set up its support and supply base in the forest zone along the Kama River [10]. It became clear at the time that stable groups of radical Salaphites have emerged in Tatarstan closely connected with one another, as well as with ethnic nationalists and representatives of the criminal world.
In 2010 the leader of the North Caucasian radical Islamists, Amir of Imarat Kavkaz announced the formation of the vilayet Idel Ural, which included the territory of the Volga area and the Urals [11]. Following this, another underground appeared. The number of Salaphites was growing, and their institutionalization proceeded apace. In the view of experts, there are about three thousand Salaphites and their supporters in Tatarstan today [12]. More people join their ranks. In Saudi Arabia alone there are 120 Tatar students who have gone there without informing the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Tatarstan. In 2011, twenty more young Tatars left for the homeland of Wahhabis [13]. In January 2012 a home-made laboratory was discovered in the village
of Memdel in Tatarstan producing explosives and "belts of shahid" [14]. On July 19, 2012, the mufti of Tatarstan I. Faizov was wounded and his deputy V. Yakupov killed in a terrorist act. In the view of Tatar experts, the events taking place in Tatarstan today repeat the Ingush-Daghestani scenario some ten to fifteen years ago. The first mufti of Daghestan was killed in 1998. After that, more than fifty muftis, their deputies and imams who adhered to traditional Islam lost their life in terrorist acts in the North Caucasus [15].
Experts predict the spreading of Islamic fundamentalism in the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, just as was the case of the North Caucasus. The fundamentalist groupings regard themselves as stable communities, clearly realizing their specificity, interests, and the possibilities to protect them using legal and other means. This path has already been traversed by their North Caucasian fellow-thinkers who have created a whole number of such organizations engaged in protecting human rights. For example, in Daghestan such organizations were formed in the first decade of the 2000s, which legally support the activity of the armed extremist underground. The most popular of them was "The Mothers of Daghestan" [16]. The leaders of these organizations maintain contacts with extremists and sharply criticize the activity of the law-enforcement agencies, accusing them of mass violations of human rights. Moreover, in the view of certain experts, a stable and influential "Islamist lobby" has taken shape in Russia [17]. Using this, the "Salaphite wing of Muslims organizes legal meetings of their supporters and harp on the subject of alleged persecutions of Muslims on a countrywide scale" [18].
The next stage of spreading Wahhabi trend, in our view, is the strengthening of the positions of its adepts in 'Muslim enclaves," which emerged in some Russian big cities in recent years. Such enclaves have taken shape in some European countries a long time ago, for instance
in France, and this was why their experience could prove useful to Russia [19].
European realities show that ethnically and religiously similar communities of migrants successfully form the "enclave" medium of environment localizing within corresponding territorial boundaries, with mosques or prayer houses, which serve as centers of their concentration. Simultaneously, one of the consequences of the emergence of such "enclaves" is criminalization and religious and political radicalization of certain part of migrants, which inevitably breeds conflicts with the local population. In our view, there is no point of talking about tolerant "Euro-Islam," what is more likely is Islamization of Europe in the most dangerous forms. The events of the first years of the new millennium in Spain, Britain, France and other European countries confirm this statement. As a consequence, European politicians have begun talking recently about the failure of the ideology and practice of multiculturalism and of incompatibility of Islamism with western liberal values.
Similar "enclaves" have appeared in Russian cities, too, and the results of this became evident quite soon. In the course of an operation of law-enforcement agencies in St. Petersburg in February 2013, in a prayer house on one of the city's markets, and in private homes 271 persons were apprehended, who stored and distributed printed materials of extremist nature. Ninety percent of them were foreign immigrants from Afghanistan and Egypt. They adhered to radical currents of Islam, denied secular power and wished to do everything to establish caliphate [20].
During the post-Soviet period, due to the weakening of the institutions of state power of the Russian Federation and under a strong foreign influence a steady process of politicization and radicalization of Islam and Islamic groupings was going on, as well as emergence and
institutionalization of non-traditional Islamist currents took place in the country. These processes were aggravated by weakness and disunity of traditional and official Russian Islam, and realization of separatist projects in certain regions of the country, primarily in the North Caucasus. Due to a whole number of reasons and objective and subjective factors, stable groupings of radical Salaphites have come into being and strengthened on the territory of Russia, which have become institutionalized first in some North Caucasian republics. Subsequently, jihad has proliferated practically throughout the entire North Caucasus, and in the past decade prerequisites have emerged for the creation of radical Salaphite groupings in the Volga area, the Urals and West Siberia, as well as in "Muslim enclaves" of big Russian cities.
Notes
1. V. Bobrovnikov. Islamofobiya i religioznoye zakonodatelstvo v Dagestane [Islam-phobia and Religious Legislation in Daghestan] // Central Asia and Kazakhstan. 2000, No 218.
2. See: I. Dobayev. Ekstremistskiye gruppirovki v SShA: Islamsky factor [Extremist Groupings in the U.S.A.: Islamic Factor] // World Economy and International Relations, 2007, No 1.; by the same author. Islamizatsiya Evropy: mif ili realnaya ugroza? [Islamization of Europe: Myth or Real Threat?] World Economy and International Relations, 2008, No 4.
3. Novaya gazeta, 2010, No 22, March 3.
4. Romanchenko. Institutsionalizatsiya sovremennykh radikalnykh nepravitelstvennykh religiozno-politiucheskikh organizatsii na Severnom Kavkaze [Institutionalization of Modern Radical Religious-political Non-governmental Organizations in the North Caucasus]. Yuzhnorossiiskoye obozreniye, 2011, issue 68, p. 97.
5. O. Bobrova. Imarat Kavkaz. Gosudarstvo, kotorogo net [Imarat Kavkaz. A State Which Does Not Exist] // Novaya gazeta, 2010, No 22, March 3.
6. Ibid.
7. Argumenty i fakty. Region [Arguments and Facts. Region], 2000, Nos 4, 5.
8. Silantyev. Rasprostraneniye wahhabizma v sovremennoi Rossii [Distribution of Wahhabism in Modern Russia] // Vestnik Chelyabinskogo gosudarsvennogo universiteta, issue 16(154), Istoriya, 2009, pp. 168-169.
9. R. Suleimanov. Islamsky terrorizm v sovremennom Tatarstane: wahhabizm na praktike [Islamic Terrorism in Modern Tatarstan: Wahhabism in Reality] // Agency of Political News, 2012, July 25.
10. R. Suleimanov. Wahhabizm v Tatarstane v postsovetsky period v svete vliyaniya vneshnikh faktorov [Wahhabism in Tatarstan in Post-Soviet Period in the Light of Influence of Foreign Factors] // Problemy natsionalnoi strategii, 2013, No 1(16), p. 177.
11. The Mojaheds of Tatarstan Recognized Doku Umarov as Their Leader // Kazan, Internet site, 2012, July 27; http://www.temakazan.ru/news/crime/item/4819/
12. Ya. Gordeyev. Na porokhovoi bochke: otkuda v Povolzhye terroristy [On Powder Keg: Where Are Terrorists in the Volga Area from?] // The New Times, Internet site, 2011, No 29, September 12,; http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/43421
13. R. Garcia. Volga vpadayet v Araviiskoye more: malenky oplot religioznogo extremizma v Tatarstane [The Volga Empties into the Arabian Sea: Small Bulwark of Religious Extremism in Tatarstan] // Expert, 2012, October 15.
14. R. Suleimanov. Op. cit.
15. Ibid.
16. See about it: G. Murklinskaya. Setevaya voina protiv Rossii na Severnom Kavkaze: realnost i perspektivy. Islamsky factor na Yuge Rossii [Network War against Russia in the North Caucasus: Reality and Prospects. Islamic Factor in the South of Russia]. Yuznorossiskoye obozreniye, 2012, issue 72, pp. 22-23.
17. See for example: Ya. Amelina. Krov muftiya Tatarstana i ego zamestitelya na rukakh tekh, kto ne priznaval islamistskikh nastroyenii v respublike [The Blood of Mufti of Tatarstan and His Deputy on the Hands of Those Who Did Not Feel Islamists Sentiments in the Republic] // IA REGNUM, 2012, July 20; R. Suleimanov. Op. cit.
18. V. Maltsev. Islam zachishchayut ot nelegalov. Gosudarstvo rasshiryaey silovuyu podderzhku ofitsialnogo dukhovenstva [Islam Is Cleansed from Illegal Persons. The State Broadens Support of Official Clergy] // NG-Religii, 2013, February 20.
19. See: I. Dobayev. Islamizatsiya Evropy: mif ili realnaya ugroza? [Islamization of Europe: Myth or Real Threat?] // World Economy and International Relations, 2008, No 4.
20. V. Maltsev. Op. cit.
"Vlast," Moscow, 2011, No 10, pp. 17-22.
