Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 3-14-CEBy Capt (Ret) C de Waart, feel free to share: in Confidence.

Remember: “The Nafir1 to Crimea has started and Turkey is the starting point.”

3-13-CE. North Caucasus Militants Split Between Caucasus Emirate and Islamic State, as Radical Islam Gains Influence in Region. When a senior Islamic Caucasus Emirate (ICE) commander in Dagestan and others swore allegiance to the Islamic State in mid-December, it caused uproar among jihadists in the Caucasus.

"Of course, there are those who are fighting for faith, for an idea, but you can't call it a holy war. Cutting throats in front of a camera isn't jihad. And in my five months there I did not see any suffering women or starving kids. And there were many people who thought as I did, that it was all true, and that's why they went there, having left their homes," RIA quotes Magomed S. as saying.

• Ahmed B. says he was radicalized online and shown videos that convinced him that the "Syrian government was attacking the local population."

• "Young people cheated by propaganda from those such as Murad Atayev and similar media workers of the "Baghdadi State" [a pejorative term for the IS group used by some Russian-speaking militants] about a "great victory" are rushing to join this sect, thinking that they are going to a "caliphate" that is growing every day," the post by Salagayeva says. The post goes on to claim that the Islamic State's leadership is in disarray.

• "In reality, [the IS group's] leadership is panicking and throwing these novices into battle without giving them necessary information about the enemy and without equipping them with the required weapons (which it hasn't got, it's been left in Kobani, etc.),"

• Ahmed B. suggests that the Americans are somehow sponsoring the propaganda videos that were used to recruit him to JMA. "On the videos, which were apparently sent by American sponsors, it seemed that people are being killed just because they are Muslims. We want to protect our religion but we saw something that doesn't have anything to do with it,"

Caucasus Emirate and Islamic State Split Slows Militant Activities in North Caucasus

February 13, 2015 -- Volume 12, Issue 29 Since last November, the commanders of the North Caucasus jamaats, one after another, have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (see EDM, January 16). It is well known that the Caucasus Emirate replaced the idea of an independent Chechen state—Ichkeria. The concept of the Caucasus Emirate was founded on the premise of armed resistance by the North Caucasian militants and the idea of building an Islamic state on the territory of the North Caucasus. The creation of the Caucasus Emirate was announced on October 7, 2007, by the president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Doku Umarov, and it claimed to include the entire North Caucasus between the Caspian and the Black seas

1 http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/nafir/ The Islamic Arabic term “Nafir” is a call to action that requires any member of a jihadi group to travel to the country Nafir is called against and participate in a holy war in the name of Allah. Nafir was declared in the early stages of the conflicts in Syria and Egypt, and it helped spark jihadi migrations into these nations. In this case, there’s no evidence yet of radical Muslim fighters flocking to Crimea to team up with the Muslim minority living there, but the #NafirforUkraine hashtag has been used more than 1,000 times, predominantly in tweets from Saudi Arabia.

(Kavkazcenter.com, December 9, 2007). In December 2009, Russia’s Supreme Court banned the activities of the Caucasus Emirate, designating it a terrorist organization (Supcourt.ru, December 18, 2009). Following the Dagestani and Chechen amirs, the Ingush jamaat also appears to be on its way to joining al-Baghdadi. A new video recording posted to the Internet last week (February 8) indicates that the process of integrating the North Caucasus militants into the structures of the Islamic State is in full swing. The young man in the 1 minute and 40 second video presented himself as the amir of Ingushetia, but did not give his full name. The website associated with the Islamic State identified him as Amir Muhammad (Fisyria.info, February 8). The militant did not pledge allegiance to the “caliph of all Muslims” al-Baghdadi. Prior to reading his address, Amir Muhammad said that he had recorded another audio address to Umar Shishani. In this video, Amir Muhammad addresses the North Caucasians who are fighting in Syria and Iraq and mentions Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi along with Umar Shishani (Tarkhan Batirashvili), a Chechen, and Abu Jihad (Islam Atabiev), a Karachay. Amir Muhammad says that his address is in response to an appeal by Abu Jihad, who had called on everyone to clarify their attitude to the Islamic State. Ingushetia’s amir says that he supports the fighters of the Islamic State and expresses his solidarity with them. However, he does not take an oath of allegiance in the video, which probably means that Amir Muhammad will wait for a reply from Umar Shishani. Since Ingushetia’s amir expressed support for the caliphate fighters, he is probably quite close to taking the oath of allegiance to the Islamic State organization. The final decision of Ingushetia’s jamaat will determine its relations with the Caucasus Emirate, especially, with the amir of the Chechen velayat, Amir Hamzat (Aslan Batyukaev). In the past several years, the vitality of the Ingush jamaat was undermined as a result of the deaths of three of its amirs (Lenta.ru, May 24, 2014). Some of its members were arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the police, which put the jamaat on the defensive. Today, the jamaat practically functions only in union with the Chechen jamaat in the border area between Chechnya and Ingushetia. Thus, Ingushetia’s jamaat cannot simply part with the Chechen jamaat and survive without its support. Given the Ingush jamaat’s dependence on the Chechen jamaat, Amir Muhammad will have to make a decision based on the realities of his situation, rather than on the virtual support of the Islamic State and Umar Shishani. This video address and the qualms of Ingush jamaat Amir Muhammad about the Islamic State will be an unpleasant surprise to the leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Sheikh Abu Muhammad (Aliaskhab Kebekov). The leader of the Caucasus Emirate remains increasingly isolated, as well-known figures continue to abandon him. Having lost almost all the leaders of the Dagestani jamaat, Sheikh Abu Muhammad may need to try to improve his position by obtaining support from other North Caucasus jamaats—particularly the Chechen and Kabardino-Balkarian jamaats. However, the Chechen jamaat has been split, with all of its top commanders, with the exception of Amir Hamzat himself, having pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (YouTube, December 28, 2014). Since the Chechen jamaat is fairly small, the opinion of the amir of the jamaat is of relatively minor importance in comparison to the opinion of his subordinate commanders who switched their allegiance to Islamic State. So far, only the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat remains adamant in its support for the Caucasus Emirate amir (YouTube, January 10).

All of these splits in allegiance by militants in the North Caucasus have played into the hands of the Russian government. In the past two months, the situation in Dagestan and Ingushetia has been quiet. The number of militant attacks on government forces last year were 50 percent fewer in comparison to 2013, and government operations against the militants were cut by half in 2014 (Kavkazsky Uzel, January 30). In the past two to three months, the North Caucasus militants have been busy arguing with each other. The amir of the Tarkalinsky jamaat, Muhammad; the amir of Makhachkala, Seifullah; the amir of the Kaspiysky jamaat, Musa; and the amir of the Shamilkala sector, Muhammad, all left the Caucasus Emirate and recorded a video address asking for help in fighting the enemies of Islam. The militants said that officials and law enforcement agents, whom they referred to as kafirs (infidels), would soon “lose their heads” (YouTube, January 30). They said nothing, however, about what they had done to date and how they would divide up the spheres of influence with the militants who are still members of the Caucasus Emirate. Consequently, one can increasingly observe a drift of Caucasus Emirate members toward the Islamic State and how this development, in turn, appears to have stalled the actions of the militant groups operating in the North Caucasus. The future of the armed resistance in the North Caucasus, therefore, greatly depends on how the dispute between the Caucasus Emirate and the Islamic State will be resolved.

--Mairbek Vatchagaev

February 02, 2015 A social media account linked to the Chechen-led faction Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA), which considers itself to be the Syrian affiliate of the North Caucasus militant group the Caucasus Emirate, has accused the Islamic State (IS) group of using inexperienced young recruits as "cannon fodder." The account, which appears to be run by a female JMA supporter who calls herself Aygul Salagayeva or Bely Sneg ("White Snow"), is one of the largest pro-JMA accounts with a presence on both Facebook and the Russian social network VKontakte. The account often posts the opinions of North Caucasian militants in JMA. JMA, which also has an Islamist ideology and which fights the Syrian government alongside groups like Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, has been in an increasingly bitter ideological battle with the Islamic State group since December 2013. The post on February 2 accuses the Islamic State group and its propagandists, including a Russian-speaking individual who uses the alias Murad Atayev and appears to be located in Turkey, of deceiving young recruits. "Young people cheated by propaganda from those such as Murad Atayev and similar media workers of the "Baghdadi State" [a pejorative term for the IS group used by some Russian-speaking militants] about a "great victory" are rushing to join this sect, thinking that they are going to a "caliphate" that is growing every day," the post by Salagayeva says. The post goes on to claim that the Islamic State's leadership is in disarray."In reality, [the IS group's] leadership is panicking and throwing these novices into battle without giving them necessary information about the enemy and without equipping them with the required weapons (which it hasn't got, it's been left in Kobani, etc.)," Salagayeva goes on to say. The remark about the Islamic State's leadership is likely a reference not only to the group's overall leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but also to Umar Shishani, the IS military commander in Syria, a Russian-speaking militant from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.Chechen militants fighting in JMA and with the group named Seyfullakh Shishani's Jamaat, which is part of Jabhat al-Nusra, have previously accused Umar Shishani of using foreign fighter recruits for "cannon fodder" as a military strategy. One militant, who goes by the name Khalid Shishani and who fights with Seyfullakh Shishani's Jamaat, has blamed Umar Shishani for causing high casualty rates in battles because of this tactic. Salagayeva's post goes on to

criticize the Islamic State's recent tactic of making videos in which militants call on Muslims from their home countries to carry out attacks against civilians. "Being unable to repulse the enemy with modern weapons, these people actively made videos of mass killings and urged their supporters to murder ordinary citizens in Europe and America," Salagayeva wrote.The post ends with a call to wanna-be militants not to join Islamic State."So you who are in a hurry come here to wage jihad; if you want to die in a questionable way and get a dubious martyrdom [a term used by militants to refer to dying in battle], considering where and how you will die -- you should really go to [IS]. But those of you who want to fight in Allah's path, stay away from this meat grinder," the post concludes.The post is the latest example of a recent trend of social media accounts linked to JMA and other anti-IS Chechen militants in Syria openly criticizing the Islamic State group. Last week, accounts linked to JMA expressed positive reactions to the Kurdish victory over the IS group in Kobani, even though they insisted that they do not support the Kurds. The trend reflects the increasing animosity between North Caucasus militants in IS and those in other factions, particularly JMA. The growing rift between the factions -- which began after Umar Shishani left the letter to pledge allegiance to IS leader Baghdadi in December 2013 -- has been exacerbated in recent weeks after a number of Caucasus Emirate groups, mostly in Dagestan, pledged allegiance to the IS group. -- Joanna Paraszczuk

January 27, 2015 Two Chechens who say they fought with the Islamic State (IS) group have expressed negative attitudes about the militants and say they regret their decisions to go to Syria, according to interviews published by Russian state media. It's not clear from the reports whether the two Chechen returnees are standing trial on charges of participating in the fighting in Syria and if so whether they chose to express regret and remorse about their decisions in order to attempt to mitigate the court's decision about punishment. There has been at least one case in Chechnya of a Chechen man, Said Mazhayev, who returned home after fighting in Syria and appeared on national television in order to appeal to young Chechens not to make the same mistake he had and go to Syria. Mazhayev, who was given a two-year prison sentence in November, said that he had made his television appeal to tell young Chechens "what was really happening in Syria." Regardless of the reason why these young Chechens chose to talk about their experiences in Syria, their stories and attitudes -- at least as presented in the Russian media -- share similarities to those expressed by Mazhayev. It is likely that these interviews are intended as cautionary tales designed to deter young Russian-speaking Muslims who may be considering joining the "jihad" in Syria. The main themes expressed by the interviewees are that they were conned by fake videos claiming to show that the Syrian government was killing Sunni Muslim women and children; that the fighting in Syria was not really "jihad"; and that the IS group is recruiting militants to fight for its own financial and political interests.The interviews conflate the IS group with other militant groups in Syria, specifically the Chechen-led Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, the Syrian branch of the North Caucasus-based militant group the Caucasus Emirate.Both interviews also include an anti-American spin, with the accusation that the United States is either sponsoring propaganda or engaged in double-dealing with militant groups in Syria.According to RIA Novosti, which said that the Russia Today outlet had carried out the interviews, one of the Chechen men, named as Magomed S., said that he traveled to Syria to fight in the summer of 2014. He was motivated by a video he saw about the "situation in Syria," RIA reported. The 25-year-old says that he "stumbled on" the video on the Internet. The footage showed women and children being abused, he explains. "It wasn't possible to remain indifferent to their pain and tears. I thought, my family has a good life, they are not starving, they are not freezing, they are shod and clothed. And I decided to help those who

needed it most," he says. Magomed S. told his family that he was going to study in Egypt, but instead he went to Syria. According to RIA, Magomed S. decided to return home to Chechnya after a few months in Syria. The news agency said Magomed's decision came after he realized that "what he had seen in the video bore no resemblance to reality.""Of course, there are those who are fighting for faith, for an idea, but you can't call it a holy war. Cutting throats in front of a camera isn't jihad. And in my five months there I did not see any suffering women or starving kids. And there were many people who thought as I did, that it was all true, and that's why they went there, having left their homes," RIA quotes Magomed S. as saying. Magomed S. also insists that he did not take part in any fighting during his time in Syria, a claim that has been made by Chechens who have stood trial on charges of fighting in Syria. According to Magomed S., he spent all his time in a training base and received $50 per month.The Chechen returnee also makes a point of mentioning that the IS group was not all it seemed to be. "I heard that while fighting against America, the Islamic State [group] also sells them oil. No one should die for someone else's interests and money," Magomed S. insists.While Magomed S. says he fought for the IS group, RIA includes an interview with another Chechen returnee, 22-year-old Ahmed B., who says he fought with the "Caucasus Emirate" in Syria -- in other words, the Chechen-led faction Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA), which calls itself the Syrian branch of the Caucasus Emirate and is therefore a particular concern to Russia. Ahmed B. says he was radicalized online and shown videos that convinced him that the "Syrian government was attacking the local population." In July 2014, Ahmed B. left his wife and baby and went to Turkey, RIA says. Once in Syria, Ahmed B. claims that he realized right away that he should leave, and that he had been mistaken about events in Syria."Practically right away I figured that I should get out of there, but I couldn't find a way. Nothing was as I'd imagined it when I went there. You couldn't tell who was fighting who and most importantly for what," Ahmed B. says. Ahmed B. tells the same story about JMA as Magomed S. did about the IS group: that the young wannabe jihadis were just pawns in a political game. "We were goods. We were just set up to serve their interests. They earned money for us, to put it bluntly," Ahmed B. says.Just as Magomed S. suggests that the United States is engaged in shady dealings with the IS group, Ahmed B. suggests that the Americans are somehow sponsoring the propaganda videos that were used to recruit him to JMA. "On the videos, which were apparently sent by American sponsors, it seemed that people are being killed just because they are Muslims. We want to protect our religion but we saw something that doesn't have anything to do with it," Ahmed B. says. -- Joanna Paraszczuk

Kadyrov Proposes Using Chechen Forces to Suppress Dissent Across Russia February 9, 2015 -- Volume 12, Issue 25 Ramzan Kadyrov has warned that Chechen forces may be deployed in other regions of Russia to fight terrorism and extremism. “If there are such indications [of terrorism and extremism] in Moscow or other regions of the country, we will be at the forefront to fight them because we have the experience,” he said. “In all these years we have garnered so much experience and can fight so well that we will be in the first ranks for such a role. If Chechen terrorists can be eliminated or imprisoned, so can be a Russian or Tatar terrorist; there is no other way. We have the same attitude toward all citizens of Russia. If there are extremist indications, we will take steps, we will ask the leadership of the country to make use of Chechen law enforcement forces just as forces from other regions of Russia were used on the territory of Chechnya in the past [during the counterterrorist regime in Chechnya]” (YouTube, see 8:45 minute mark, January 22).

It is interesting that most of the Kadyrov’s recorded speech was in Chechen, but the passage above was entirely in Russian. The Chechen leader must have intended to send the message to officials in the Russian establishment who had tried to confine him within the administrative boundaries of Chechnya. Kadyrov’s statements come at a time when even the slightest opposition is severely suppressed by the Russian government, and any kind of political opposition can be deemed “extremism” under the vague Russian law on extremism. Due to the worsening economic situation in Russia, substantial public protests could soon erupt and Kadyrov’s forces will be among the most ardent supporters of Putin’s regime due to the personal alliance between the two. However, the aspirations of Chechnya’s ruler to expand his influence beyond the republic displease not only Russian liberals, but also Russian nationalists and possibly a significant part of the Russian government. Mass rallies in Chechnya, theatrical pledges of loyalty to Putin in the republic and promises to prosecute extremists across Russia (see EDM, February 5) appear to stem from Ramzan Kadyrov’s struggle with his publicly invisible nemeses in the Russian government. Meanwhile, Kadyrov’s alliance with Putin produces hefty payoffs for the former. Chechens close to the republic’s government often evade justice easily. In the latest episode, 30 Chechen men reportedly attacked a company office in Moscow. A dozen of the attackers were arrested, but were released immediately the next day—a move that is highly unusual for Russian law enforcement agencies (Slon.ru, February 6). However, some observers believe the Kremlin should change its way of dealing with the North Caucasus. Konstantin Kazenin, a well-known Moscow-based specialist on the North Caucasus, wrote that Moscow should stop “looking at the North Caucasus through feudal spectacles,” seeing in the region only the leaders and their subordinates, since there are many people who are dissatisfied with both the official leadership and with the armed underground movement. The expert explained popular support for Kadyrov in Chechnya by the long history of devastating wars. “This society [Chechnya] lived through war, and the fear of resuming the war provides a significant level of support for the authorities as long as those authorities guarantee that there will be no war,” Kazenin wrote. Given the special situation in Chechnya, Kazenin said, the phenomenon of Kadyrov’s popularity in the republic is limited to the republic and cannot be replicated elsewhere in the North Caucasus. Moreover, Chechnya has border issues with its neighbors on both sides, Ingushetia and Dagestan, and Kadyrov’s ability to resolve those issues is quite constrained (Forbes.ru, February 5). Kazenin prudently avoids one of the primary questions when discussing the phenomenon of Kadyrov—what will happen if the alliance between the ruler of Chechnya and the ruler of Russia breaks down? Putin’s popularity is still soaring as the war in Ukraine rages and the rally-around-the-flag effect provides a fair cushion for him. The war, however, cannot last forever and the more aggressive Putin becomes in Ukraine, the more severe the economic sanctions imposed on the country will be. Putin’s popularity may tumble just as quickly as it rose. The well-known Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Portnikov added that “if Putin leaves, Kadyrov’s regime will either be replaced by the new Russian president or will be destroyed through a civil war in Chechnya.” Moreover, Portnikov noted that any country-wide crisis in Russia will immediately result in a full-fledged crisis in the North Caucasus, and Putin himself set up Russia for the upcoming troubles in this region (Krymr.com, February 6). Another possibility exists, of course—that Putin’s regime tumbles, leaving behind Kadyrov’s regime on its ruins.

Kadyrov’s extravagant gestures and unusual statements mean his positions is either under attack or he perceives himself as under threat. In the current political situation in Russia, Chechnya is not the first priority for President Putin, so the alliance between Kadyrov and Putin may have become less meaningful or intense. This change may have allowed people in Putin’s entourage to launch attacks on Kadyrov, or Kadyrov is simply trying to regain the same level of importance to the Russian president that he enjoyed prior to the war in Ukraine.

--Valery Dzutsev

Russian Orthodox Church Tries to Keep Ethnic Russians in Chechnya and Dagestan February 4, 2015 -- Volume 12, Issue 22 Ethnic Russians are leaving the North Caucasus, and the prospects for restoring ethnic-Russian communities in the republics are dim despite the authorities’ efforts. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians fled Chechnya following years of war and instability. Economic and political upheavals forced most ethnic Russians out of northern Dagestan, where a large Russian community existed. The Russian Orthodox Church has now stepped up efforts to build churches in both republics to provide anchors for the Russian population to stay, but the benefits of the program are questionable. According to the Russian Orthodox Church, 6 million Muslims in the North Caucasus have about 6,000 mosques and 3 million ethnic Russians have an estimated 600 churches. The construction of churches in the North Caucasus is under way to alleviate the perceived imbalance (Kavpolit.com, January 24). Ethnic Russians comprised the plurality of the population of two northern districts in Chechnya, Naursky and Shelkovskoy, according to the results of the 1979 census. By the time of the 1989 census, the proportion of ethnic Russians in both districts became smaller than the proportion of ethnic Chechens. According to the 2002 census, ethnic Russians comprised 13 percent of the population of Naursky district and 8 percent of the population of Shelkovskoy district. Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov announced a program for returning ethnic Russians to the republic, but it did not work out quite as expected (Svpressa.ru, May 19, 2013). The leaders of the North Caucasus republics have said repeatedly that they favor the return of ethnic Russians. However, lower level authorities are often less receptive to integrationist ideas. For example, the municipal authorities in Chechnya’s Shelkovskoy district have reportedly refused to provide the land plot for a Russian Orthodox Church to be built in the central part of the administrative capital of the district, Shelkovskaya village. The Cossack leader in Shelkovskoy district, Alexander Gritsakov, complained in an interview with the Kavpolit.com website that the Cossacks in the district cannot build churches as they like. “The head of the Naursky district is [an ethnic] Russian, the head of the police is also a Russian, but in our [district] all Russians have been fired from the leadership positions,” he said. Asked by the journalist why the Cossacks do not erect a wooden church in Shelkovskaya, Gritsakov said that it would be burned down (Kavpolit.com, January 24). The former leader of the Cossacks in the district, Yuri Laskov, on the contrary, said that life in Shelkovskaya is far better than in the neighboring Stavropol region, because Chechnya, in his words, is much less bureaucratized. The absence of churches is not a problem because they are not needed. “In the village of Kagarlinskaya only 16 Russians are left,” he said. “Who will build the church? Or in the village of Dubovskaya? Only a handful of Russians are left, about 1,900 people in the district [the official 2002 census data put the number of

Russians at almost 4,000 people in the district]. Some villages do not have even one left.” According to Laskov, all the Russians who did not sell their houses have returned to Chechnya and others have nowhere to return. Those who return have few job opportunities available to them. “Most Chechens get by, engaging in trade, but Russians do not engage in this kind of activity much,” the Cossack ex-leader said. The problem of retaining an ethnic-Russian population is quite serious even in Dagestan, which did not experience two full-scale wars with Russia as did Chechnya. A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church in Dagestan said: “We have a range of churches that do not have their own priest. By no means everyone is willing to go to Dagestan and Chechnya” (kavpolit.com, January 24). While Ramzan Kadyrov regularly makes statements about how he is defending Russia in Chechnya and elsewhere, ethnic Russians do not seem to be flocking back to the republic even as the Russian Orthodox Church attempts to mark ethnic-Russian sites with churches. Whether the Chechen authorities are consciously preventing ethnic Russians from claiming their homes or the economic situation makes it impossible for them to survive in the republic, the result is the same. Ethnic Russians are choosing to leave the North Caucasus republics, especially Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, for good. The Russian Orthodox Church’s attempt to create a certain social support system for ethnic Russians in the region does not seem to be changing the situation. At the same time, the contrast between the Russian authorities’ obsession with the physical presence of ethnic Russians in the North Caucasus and its lack of interest in the North Caucasian presence in any region is quite glaring. Even though all citizens and ethnic groups in Russia are formally equal, the largest and the most powerful ethnic group receives preferential treatment from the government in Moscow. By heralding ethnic Russians as the backbone of the state and thereby belittling the role of other ethnic groups, Moscow is creating more problems than it is solving. In response, the ethnic identities of North Caucasians are also becoming salient, and even though they cannot challenge the rise of the Russian nationalism openly, they are certain to put up passive resistance.

--Valery Dzutsev