Protest in #Makhachkala, #Dagestan, about imam's appointment to a local #mosque turned violent: see video
https://youtu.be/3qsLMWfnCWA?list=PL...x6SB6RSEsdzmN_ …
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Protest in #Makhachkala, #Dagestan, about imam's appointment to a local #mosque turned violent: see video
https://youtu.be/3qsLMWfnCWA?list=PL...x6SB6RSEsdzmN_ …
Rights group says Suleimanov, listed as shot in recent Dagestan CTO, may actually have been kidnapped and killed
https://eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/35977/
At a recent conference @ Oxford University, hosted by Pembroke College, entitled 'The Lure of Jihad: Propaganda & the Construction of Jihadist Identities' amidst the presentations was one talk that fits here: 'Emirate or Caliphate? Competing Calls to Jihad in the North Caucasus Insurgency' by Mark Youngman, of Birmingham University.
In the potted history given he pointed out that:
- The 2007 proclamation of a Caucasus Emirate was a victory of the jihadists over the nationalists;
- The split in Syria of the JMA, a Chechen group, in late 2013, was quickly replicated in the North Caucasus. This was followed by the Emirate being significantly weakened and then in July 2015 an ISIS Wilayah was proclaimed;
- This declaration was very dubious, with virtually no media explanation and no explanation how this would affect the domestic situation.
In a discussion it was suggested that the "split" was inspired by the FSB. This was supported by the first IS statement appearing on a website the FSB ran! It suits the FSB's purpose that all their opponents are IS.
Putin's approach in Chechnya worked because he was able to co-opt a major rebel faction and enable it to subdue the restive republic, not unlike how the US-led coalition worked with the Northern Alliance in 2001 against the Taliban. Of course victory is never complete and the Kadyrovtsi and Russian security forces will be playing whack-a-mole in that rugged country until the end days.
The dual Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars provided the perfect safety valve for the build up of Islamist tension in the Caucasus, and the Russian are rumored to have facilitated the jihadi trail to Nusra and Daesh where these fighters could be bombed by the Syrians, Iraqis, Russians and Americans, turn on each other or be taken out of the game by other rebel factions. This tactic was tried by Bashar Al-Assad during the Iraq War, although it only deferred the problem...
See here from Jamestown on Caucasian Radicalization:
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_...6e9d535a3d8c99
Militants Killed In Daghestan Clashes
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-.../27844768.html …
A classic account from a place I've never heard of and where Russian COIN / CT is very different:The full title is 'Why Is Karachaevo-Cherkessia Quiet When Its Neighbors Suffer From Violence?'. Link:https://jamestown.org/program/karach...ffer-violence/Quote:
...the police officer can no longer revert to cruel methods of investigation against a person who prays next to him.
(Later) The example of Kabardino-Balkaria indicates that the authorities normally prefer to strike preemptively to antagonize, alienate and radicalize the Muslim community in order to justify the government terror that follows.
DFR Lab @DFRLab
"Dear friends! ...we have neutralized a very dangerous militant group" #Kadyrov’s Hunt for an #ISIS Sleeper Cell:
https://medium.com/p/4d38cbbe3f11/
The antiterrorist op conducted in Vremenny (Dagestan), in which a whole village was destroyed, now in the ECHR:
http://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/296209/#
Chechen militants emerging from the forests as winter ends - both IS-linked cadres, and small unknown groups
http://www.kavkazr.com/a/v-lesakh-ch...28401895.html#
Chechnya has seen 4 major militant attacks in last 4 months - marked shift from prevailing calm in 2015 - late 2016
http://www.kavkazr.com/a/v-chechne-n...28400863.html#
Social media calls to murder gays in Chechnya; many fleeing republic; victims include clergy and TV anchors
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles...m_source=push#
Chechnya doing everything today to avoid a large scale gay pride march....
Mass crackdown on LGBT in Chechnya; more than 100 men detained; a few released; at least 3 confirmed killed;
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles...m_source=push#
Kadyrov spox: Gays not persecuted in Chechnya b/c any gays there would be sent somewhere "they wouldn't return" from
http://www.interfax.ru/russia/556385
.@novaya_gazeta fears for safety of reporters after Chechen Islamic leaders swear vengeance over gay abuse reports:
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles...res-redaktsii#
Chechnya has created a single prison now for gays...many have been arrested/tortured...then killed and or have simply "disappeared" leading to claims gays do not exist in Chechnya....
Unbelievably sad, grim, important story by @shaunwalker7 on persecution of men suspected of being gay in Chechnya:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...nti-gay-purge#
Russia urged to investigate alleged killings of gay people in Chechnya
http://ti.me/2odEpUU
First hand accounts of the purge of gay men going on in Chechnya right now. Grim but necessary reading.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...=share_btn_tw#
Important:
There's open hunt for Russian journalists behind gay murders expos in Chechnya
https://en.hromadske.ua/posts/journa...are-threatened
A promise of “retribution without statute of limitations” for those risking their safety to report on the atrocities happening in #Chechnya.
Chechen minister says divine retribution threats against Novaya Gazeta journos are just "ordinary local rhetoric."
https://meduza.io/news/2017/04/17/ch...skoy-ritorikoy …
Moscow-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that the Islamic State group (ISIS) is sending Nato-trained assassins to kill him.
A short article via CREST, which points to a longer, free report and starts with:Link:https://crestresearch.ac.uk/comment/...eign-fighters/Quote:
Despite its early and spectacular successes in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State (IS) has, over the last year, suffered repeated setbacks that have weakened its ability to control captured territory and implement its state-building agenda. A key aspect of IS’s strategy has been the mobilisation of supporters across Russia and the former Soviet Union. Other rebel groups in Syria have also attracted support from these areas, illustrating the need for a proper understanding of the Russian-speaking militant milieu, beyond IS’s territorial claims.
A resource to watch by Mark Youngman, a PhD student @ Birmingham University, on the region; it assembles his previous work and now adds a pointer to others recent research.
Link:https://mark-youngman.com/ and the recent research:https://mark-youngman.com/2018/03/04...us-march-2018/
Not the first ISIS inspired attack in Russia:Link:http://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/43086/?Quote:
The terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS) banned in Russia claimed responsibility for a man's attack on policemen in the Stavropol Territory.
Two background articles via Open Democracy on the regional conflict and linked I noted by an act of revenge.
The first is about the Second Chechen War and is summarised as:Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-rus...d-chechen-war?Quote:
Chechen journalist Abdul Itslayev lived out the Second Chechen War in his native village. Against a backdrop of rocket attacks, murder and robbery, he tried to piece together what, in fact, was happening
The second is more historical 'Will the war in Russia’s North Caucasus ever end?' and aims to explain:Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-rus...asus-ever-end?Quote:
Over the past 200 years, war and colonisation has defined Russia’s North Caucasus. But in a period of relative calm, significant changes are still underway.
The link:Quote:
On 4 August 2018, tens of thousands of mourners gathered in the Chechen village of Geldagen to bury Yusup Temerkhanov. Thousands more sent their condolences via WhatsApp. Temerkhanov died in a Siberian prison hospital during a 15-year sentence for the murder of Yuri Budanov. A Russian army colonel, Budanov had been convicted in 2003 for the kidnapping and murder of Elza Kungayeva, a Chechen woman, during the Second Chechen War. He was released on parole in 2009 – and shot dead in Moscow two years later. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who was present at the funeral, said in his eulogy that Temerkhanov’s guilt hadn’t been proven and that he had been unjustly convicted. But the crowd of people in Geldagen had gathered to honour the memory of the man who had become the embodiment of a nation’s revenge for the rape and murder of a young Chechen woman by a Russian war criminal.