It is a term that is used in many Central Asian states: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - none of which were ever under Ottoman rule. In Dagestan, they can also be referred to as rayons, but wilayat is a common usage.Originally Posted by zenpundit
Thanks!
Thank you Jed, that clarifies -and makes linguistic sense for some of the CA examples.It is a term that is used in many Central Asian states: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - none of which were ever under Ottoman rule. In Dagestan, they can also be referred to as rayons, but wilayat is a common usage.
Channel One "Uncovers" a Turkish-U.S. Plot in the Caucasus, The Jamestown Foundation: Chechnya Weekly, April 24, 2008.
Russian state television’s Channel One on the evening of April 22 broadcast a putative documentary film made by Kremlin correspondent Anton Vernitsky called “Plan 'Kavkaz'” (The Caucasus Plan). The film purports to show how Turkey, the United States and Great Britain attempted at the start of the 1990s to divide Russia into small parts not controlled by the federal center. The film featured Berkan Merrikh Yashar, born Abubakar—a Turkish-born ethnic Chechen who claims to be a journalist who once worked for Radio Liberty in Munich and a politician with close connections to the Turkish leadership.Yashar states in the film that at the start of the 1990s he prepared a political platform for separating Chechnya from Russia and that there were several sources financing this project. He claims, among other things, that passports for the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria were printed in France while "many tons" of Ichkerian banknotes, which resembled U.S. currency, were printed in Germany. Yashar says that Western special services did not really care about the independence of the peoples of Caucasus but were acting only in the interest of their "personal profit." He also claims that Western special services tried to convince Muslim muftis in Russia—not only in Chechnya, but also in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan—to break away from Russia because of religious differences. He also refers to the self-exiled Russian tycoon and his former partner, the late Badri Patarkastishvili, stating that they were involved in questionable deals in the Caucasus.
The Sufism of the Naqshbandi tariqa (or brotherhood).
Caucasus embraces Islam
http://www.kafkas.org.tr/english/kultur/din.html
ICG, 3 Jun 08: Russia’s Dagestan: Conflict Causes
....Large-scale war is unlikely to develop in Dagestan, but violence can be expected to continue to be caused by competition over lands and jobs, spillover from Chechnya and the rise of local jihadi groups. The origins of the present jihadi-inspired violence are in the “hunt for the Wahhabis” carried out by the Dagestani authorities after the 1999 Chechen incursion and the arbitrary persecution of pious youth by local law enforcement officers. The violence in Dagestan’s streets is also fed by the movement of rebels and Islamist militants across the porous border with Chechnya, as well as by the republic’s omnipresent corruption and criminality. Rival clans, led by President Aliyev and Makhachkala’s mayor, Said Amirov, duelled for control of economic and political assets in 2007, as the street troubles intensified.
Reprisals by local and federal security forces have failed to curb the violence; instead they seem to be escalating it. The troubled March 2007 electoral campaign and the growing number of attacks on local officials and assassinations carried out by Islamic militants suggest Dagestan faces a violent future.
Ingushetia
HRW, 25 Jun 08: Counterinsurgency, Rights Violations, and Rampant Impunity in Ingushetia
Complete 112 page report at the link.The Chechnya armed conflict affected stability and the security of communities across the North Caucasus region of Russia, and continues to do so. In Ingushetia, the republic into which Chechnya’s conflict overflowed, the grave conflict dynamics of its larger neighbor have arisen. For the past four years Russia has been fighting several militant groups in Ingushetia, which have a loose agenda to unseat the Ingush government, evict federal security and military forces based in the region, and promote Islamic rule in the North Caucasus. Beginning in summer 2007, insurgents’ attacks on public officials, law enforcement and security personnel, and civilians rose sharply.
Human Rights Watch condemns attacks on civilians and recognizes that the Russian government has a duty to pursue the perpetrators, prevent attacks, and bring those responsible to account. Attacks on civilians, public officials, and police and security forces are serious crimes. Russia, like any government, has a legitimate interest in investigating and prosecuting such crimes and an obligation to do so while respecting Russian and international human rights law. Regrettably, Russia is failing to respect or to adhere to these laws. Law enforcement and security forces involved in counterinsurgency have committed dozens of extrajudicial executions, summary and arbitrary detentions, and acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment....
Russia Profile, 22 Jul 08: Similar, But Different: Radical Islam is the universal challenge in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan
The Northern Caucasus today has diverse problems that are impossible to solve “using the same measure.” However, as this region “awakens” and bears witness to an increase of protesting attitudes, the Caucasus, more than ever before, needs a comprehensive Russian strategy of development.
Despite multiple reports about the stabilization of the situation in the Russian Caucasus, the number of problems in this region does not decrease on a daily basis......
NCW, 7 Aug 08: Rebels Move Closer to Seizing Control of Ingushetia
.....According to guerrilla warfare theory, war has several stages. The first stage is when government forces try to destroy rebel squads in remote areas of a country, such as mountains or forests. Failing that, the war enters a second stage, in which the guerrillas initiate regular sabotage operations, coming closer to the main centers of the country (large settlements). If the rebels are successful and the security forces cannot disrupt them, the guerrillas begin offensive operations near or inside major populated areas. At the same time, the police and the army lock themselves inside their garrisons. The next stage—the collapse of the government— usually quickly follows.
One can see the way that guerrilla warfare followed this pattern during the American campaign in Vietnam, the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the first Russian military campaign in Chechnya. It appears that the same scenario is now unfolding in Ingushetia. The Ingush police and Russian armed forces in the republic now care more about their own safety than about the general security situation in the republic. Zyazikov and his government are located in the capital Magas, a fortress city heavily guarded by Russian military units. Kidnappings, a problem in Ingushetia that human rights activists like to talk about, have almost stopped now, a fact allowing one to reach the paradoxical conclusion that the more police officers get killed by the rebels, the fewer civilians are detained or kidnapped in the republic.
If we do not soon see any radical changes in Russian policy towards Ingushetia, the republic may in the near future become the first real province of the insurgents’ Caucasian Emirate.
Russian tanks in Grozny
Танки в боях за Грозный. Часть 1, 2
The blog promises that you can download those materials.
http://botter.livejournal.com/133244.html
Window on Eurasia, 2 Sep 08: Russia Losing Ingushetia Before Absorbing South Ossetia
The death of Magomed Yevloyev, which most Ingush and rights groups blame on the government of Murat Zyazikov, his officials say was an accident, and a few writers suggest was a provocation by the West, has radicalized opinion there to the point that, in the words of one analyst, Russia risks “losing Ingushetia before it can absorb South Ossetia.” Yevloyev, the owner of the independent news portal Ingushetiya.ru which Zyazikov has long sought to shut down and a major opposition figure in his own right, died of bullet wounds to the head while in the custody of Zyazikov’s militia on Sunday. And his funeral yesterday grew into a mass protest, leading to a meeting today that the authorities dispersed.....
1 "older" article.
Moscow Faces a Sea of Troubles in the Caucasus
By Mairbek Vatchagaev
http://www.jamestown.org/chechnya_we...icleid=2374380The developments in the small enclave of Ingushetia continue to be a concern for Moscow. Anti-government opposition leaders have circulated a petition calling for the return of the former president, Ruslan Aushev, who left his post early under pressure from the Kremlin, which considered Aushev too independent when it came to making decisions concerning Ingushetia. The petition committee has gathered 80,000 signatures demanding that Ingushetia’s current president, Murat Zyazikov, step down and Ruslan Aushev be appointed in his place (http://ingushetiya.ru/news/15067.html). While during Putin’s term no one dared to bring up the possibility of dismissing Zyazikov, a Federal Security Service (FSB) major general, this now appears more likely in the wake of Medvedev’s accession as president and may end the long-standing confrontation between the public and Zyazikov. This is further confirmed by a recent interview with Ruslan Aushev, who for years has refused to criticize the current Ingush president, but is now making it clear that he will stand with his people (Novaya Gazeta, August 7; see also North Caucasus Weekly, August 7).
http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/...ontrol-of.htmlBy its actions in Georgia, the Russian government has increased its control over the governments of the republics in the North Caucasus but has created a situation in which, as a result, those regimes and as a result Moscow too are losing control over the people there, according to a leading specialist at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
And the reason for this, Enver Kisriyev, the head of the Caucasus Section of the Academy’s Center for Civilization and Regional Research, told Kreml.org, is that Moscow has ignored the egalitarian and pluralist nature of the societies there and instead sought to create a narrow pyramid of power with a single head
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...S2POn_HWXZ2iEwMOSCOW (AFP) — An opposition website in southern Russia said more than 50 soldiers were killed by militias on Saturday in clashes that officials told Russian news agencies had killed only two soldiers.
The Ingushetia.org website cited a local official from the interior ministry giving the casualty figure, which would represent one of the worst losses for Russian forces since the end of major combat operations in Chechnya
The Jihadi Insurgency and the Russian Counterinsurgency in the North Caucasus, by Gordon M. Hahn. Post-Soviet Affairs, Volume 24, Number 1 / January-March 2008.
39 Page pdf at the link.Abstract
A political scientist reviews the vicissitudes of the Caucasus jihadi insurgency and Russia's counterinsurgency efforts since 2005, drawing on the press, jihadist websites, and scholarship on insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. The development of jihadi-oriented fighting units, the rise and decline of Maskhadov's supremacy, the rise of Islamist elements, the Chechen separatist movement and the expansion of the jihad, Moscow's counter-jihadi successes, the jihadi network after the death of Basayev, and the rise and career of Ramzan Kadyrov are examined. These events are analyzed in terms of the dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency conflict.
I've been looking for examinations of Russian counterinsurgency in the Kadyrov era. Came across this and thought I would share it.
CSIS, 18 Nov 08: Violence in the North Caucasus: Trends Since 2004
Since January 2004, CSIS staff have been compiling, almost daily, a database that tracks violent incidents occurring in the North Caucasus. The following figures draw on this database, through August 31, 2008.
Due to the nature of these incidents and the difficulty in finding trusted reporting, we are not in a position to verify all of them. We will, however, continue to update our database as information is made available to us......
Russian Analytical Digest, 4 Dec 08: Chechnya and the North Caucasus
■ Analysis
The North Caucasus after the Georgia-Russia Conflict
■ Opinion Poll
Russian Public Opinion on the Conflict in the North Caucasus
Views of Inhabitants of Dagestan on the State of Affairs in Their Republic
■ Analysis
War and Peace in Chechnya: The Role of Ramzan Kadyrov
■ Opinion Poll
Russian Views of Kadyrov
12.02 there was OMON raid in Nazran. During the attack terrorists initiated explosion (equivalent to 70 kg TNT). Take a look at photos.
http://www.rg.ru/2009/02/13/utro.html
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?Do...7654&NodesID=6
www.google.com/translate
http://www.ng.ru/politics/2009-02-16....html?mthree=3Judging by the statistics given, the troops in the past month, daily engaged in at least two special operation. This is a great deal, considering that officially it is estimated that more than three years, the military phase is over in Chechnya. Almost a year ago, Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Edelev reported that in Chechnya «operate up to 500 militants and their accomplices». Note that these figures, but throughout the North Caucasus in March 2008 promulgated the chief internal troops of ministry of interior affairs of Russia Army General Nikolai Rogozhkin. He stressed that at that time in the North Caucasus operated from 400 to 500 fighters. After that, only in Chechnya, according to official data, have been cleared more than 540 militants.
So fighters neutralize, destroy, but they re-appear. Military, let us not once argued that the ranks of militants are fueled by young people going into the mountains, as well as acting in the underground. This increase in participants illegal armed formations is fixed, not only in Chechnya but also in other republics of the region. Thus, the same Arkadij Edelev notes that in Chechnya today there are about 500 fighters, at least 120 fighting in Ingushetia. «Thus, - concludes Edelev - support base in Ingushetia is estimated at 1237 people». However, where in general these figures are accurate supporters, remains unclear.
via google translate.
New tactics in Ingushetia - insurgency snipers at work?
http://newsru.com/russia/18feb2009/snipers.htmlLess than one day in several towns in Ingushetia wounded two policemen and one soldier. In all cases, shot by snipers, noted in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Note that similar incidents can be described as unusual for Ingushetia. There, indeed, almost every day of attacks on law enforcement, but with the use of automatic weapons and grenade launchers.
via http://translate.google.com/
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