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North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: assessing the threat of returnees to the Russian Federation
Abstract
This article looks into the dangers posed by the return of the North Caucasus militants in Syria and Iraq to the security of the Russian Federation. The article first divides the recruitment of North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq into two distinct waves. I argue that the first wave of North Caucasus foreign fighters (2011–2013) chose Syria because they could not fight in the North Caucasus. By contrast, the second wave (2014–2016) openly decided not to fight in their own region, preferring to join an international jihadist front. I then build on the literature about the impact of foreign fighters on domestic insurgencies to analyse the potential impact of these returnees on the regional insurgency in the North Caucasus. I identify four factors conditioning the motivations to return and returnee impact on domestic insurgency: a favourable context for return, an existing network in the region, resonance of the militants’ ideology with the local population, and the will to return to the region. I argue that the greater threat will come from the field commanders from the Second Chechen war exiled in Syria, rather than the more numerous second wave foreign fighters integrated into ISIS.
... Previous explanations for this decrease and shift have pointed to a host of factors both international and domestic (Aliyev 2015;Souleimanov and Petrtylova 2015;Souleimanov 2017a). Internationally, the further globalization of Islamist movements through the rise of ISIS has led to the internal fracturing of the North Caucasus Islamist insurgency and provided an alternate venue for these fighters (Ratelle 2016). Domestically, the securitization of the region around the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi deflected any discontent associated with ongoing economic stagnation, the continued use of the Kremlin's power vertical as a system of political management, and the broader adoption of harsh tactics of violence suppression and management at the regional and republic scales (Klimenko and Melvin 2016;Youngman 2016). ...
... The endgame in Syria and Iraq matters to the future trajectory of the Russian state, and the collapse of the Islamic State in late 2017 has the potential to destabilize the North Caucasus, thanks to a flood of returning fighters (Ratelle 2016). The effect on domestic conflict of returning fighters is case-specific; many of the foreign fighters who joined the war in Afghanistan during the 1980s stayed on after the conflict ended, in turn limiting the return migration of experienced fighters to their countries of origin. ...
... The consequences of involvement by fighters from the North Caucasus in the Syrian civil war remains uncertain; "If allowed to return to their homeland, North Caucasian Jihadists -a committed and experienced force of hundreds of fighters with extensive contacts with jihadists worldwide -may pose an enormous threat to Russia's internal security" (Souleimanov 2014;154). Ratelle (2016) argues that two waves of fighters from the North Caucasus have joined the war in Syria: a first group who left for Syria from 2011 to 2013 because the opportunities for fighters in the North Caucasus were foreclosed, and a second set who preferred to join the international jihadist networks established in the Middle East. Writing at a time before the fracturing of ISIS, Ratelle suggested that the former group was more likely to return to the North Caucasus. ...
... Previous explanations for this decrease and shift have pointed to a host of factors both international and domestic (Aliyev 2015;Souleimanov and Petrtylova 2015;Souleimanov 2017a). Internationally, the further globalization of Islamist movements through the rise of ISIS has led to the internal fracturing of the North Caucasus Islamist insurgency and provided an alternate venue for these fighters (Ratelle 2016). Domestically, the securitization of the region around the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi deflected any discontent associated with ongoing economic stagnation, the continued use of the Kremlin's power vertical as a system of political management, and the broader adoption of harsh tactics of violence suppression and management at the regional and republic scales (Klimenko and Melvin 2016;Youngman 2016). ...
... The endgame in Syria and Iraq matters to the future trajectory of the Russian state, and the collapse of the Islamic State in late 2017 has the potential to destabilize the North Caucasus, thanks to a flood of returning fighters (Ratelle 2016). The effect on domestic conflict of returning fighters is case-specific; many of the foreign fighters who joined the war in Afghanistan during the 1980s stayed on after the conflict ended, in turn limiting the return migration of experienced fighters to their countries of origin. ...
... The consequences of involvement by fighters from the North Caucasus in the Syrian civil war remains uncertain; "If allowed to return to their homeland, North Caucasian Jihadists -a committed and experienced force of hundreds of fighters with extensive contacts with jihadists worldwide -may pose an enormous threat to Russia's internal security" (Souleimanov 2014;154). Ratelle (2016) argues that two waves of fighters from the North Caucasus have joined the war in Syria: a first group who left for Syria from 2011 to 2013 because the opportunities for fighters in the North Caucasus were foreclosed, and a second set who preferred to join the international jihadist networks established in the Middle East. Writing at a time before the fracturing of ISIS, Ratelle suggested that the former group was more likely to return to the North Caucasus. ...
A spatial analysis of the geography of insurgency in the North Caucasus of Russia from 1999 through the end of 2016, focused on the period since 2010, corroborates other work on the incidence of violence in the region. A sharp drop in the absolute number of conflict events over the past half-decade occurred as violence diffused from Chechnya in the mid-2000s and is attributable to a range of domestic and international factors. Domestically, the decline is broadly linked to the securitization of the region around the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the return to the use of the Kremlin power vertical as a system of political management after an interlude focused on economic development as a mitigation strategy, and the wider adoption of harsh management tactics at the regional and republic scales. Internationally, potential insurgents have left Russia to fight in the Middle East and Ukraine. Using a conflict-event data-set (N = 18,960) from August 1999 through the end of 2016 and focusing on the period since the creation of the North Caucasus Federal District in January 2010, the paper identifies a set of notable trends within the decline and shift in violence. Key findings include a percentage increase in arrests carried out by Russian security services, a decline in retaliation across conflict actors, and the failure of federal subsidies to contribute to declines in violence in the region. The long-term prospects for continued insurgency in the North Caucasus, specifically in light of the collapse of the Islamic State and Russia’s domestic challenges, remain uncertain and should acknowledge the recent decline in violence in the region.
... The endgame in Syria and Iraq matters to the future trajectory of the Russian state, and the collapse of the Islamic State in late 2017 has the potential to destabilize the North Caucasus, thanks to a flood of returning fighters (Ratelle 2016). The effect on domestic conflict of returning fighters is case-specific; many of the foreign fighters who joined the war in Afghanistan during the 1980s stayed on after the conflict ended, in turn limiting the return migration of experienced fight- ers to their countries of origin. ...
... The consequences of involvement by fighters from the North Caucasus in the Syrian civil war remains uncertain; "If allowed to return to their homeland, North Caucasian Jihadists -a committed and experienced force of hundreds of fighters with extensive contacts with jihadists worldwide -may pose an enormous threat to Russia's internal security" (Souleimanov 2014;154). Ratelle (2016) The data-set analyzed here is similar in its general aims of documenting vio- lence over time and across the region to those collected by Kavkazskii Uzel and Memorial, but ours is more comprehensive in its time frame and geographic detail. ...
... Both conflicts have served as alternate venues for fighters from the region, although their pre- cise impact is difficult to evaluate using our data-set. Questions remain about the effectiveness of Russian policy in the North Caucasus if Islamists with fighting experience return to the North Caucasus from abroad or the center's capacity for subsidizing the region remains curtailed (Souleimanov 2014;Dzutsati 2016;Ratelle 2016). For now, the alliance of the Kremlin and the Kadyrov regime in Chechnya is tamping down militant attacks from the heartland of Caucasian rebellions. ...
Three U.S. geographers analyze the temporal and spatial trends of 17,438 violent events in Russia's North Caucasus region from August 1999 to July 2011, demonstrating that the diffusion of conflict away from Chechnya intensified during the period 2007-2011, as levels of violence rose in neighboring republics. An increasing number of casualties are civilians in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria, the three republics that are the focus of the paper. Employing multiple methods of spatial pattern analysis and geographically sensitive regression models, the authors examine the spatial fragmentation of violence from the perspective of rebel groups operating in the three republics. The analysis documents how the incidence of violence varies dramatically over space (i.e., reflecting the influence of urbanization, strategic location, and physical geographic factors such as elevation and extent of forest cover). Although violence in the North Caucasus region as a whole has declined in absolute terms over the past four years, the authors show how new geographies of violence are developing in the region, underscoring the emergence of republic-based insurgent operations against the various organs of the Russian state. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H560, H770, O180. 9 figures, 3 tables, 1 appendix, 103 references:
... The terrorists from the North Caucasus fight in Iraq, 212 Afghanistan, Syria, and other unstable parts of the Middle East for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra, and other terror groups. 213 The NATO army troops and planes can fly to Afghanistan through Azerbaijani territory. For instance, almost 40% of fuel, arms, food, and other cargo destined for Afghanistan's NATO mission were transported through Azerbaijan. ...
Could the Caspian Region replace Russia's or the Persian Gulf's immense energy potential with their energy resources? Yunis Gurbanov explores the strategic importance of the region in post-USSR Eurasian policies of major global actors, namely China, the EU, the USA, and Russia, and examines Azerbaijan's, Kazakhstan's, and Turkmenistan's oil and gas resources as alternatives to conventional suppliers. He shows that the Caspian region's resources could serve as alternative energy sources on a global level, mitigating dependence on traditional suppliers and stabilizing energy prices.
... By protecting the Syrian government from opposing armed forces, this would, for example, avoid the emergence of radical Islamists, which in turn would create a vacuum of instability south of the Caucasus (Souleimanov, 2016: 112;Treisman, 2012). There is an inherent contradiction in this argument, however, as Russia's intervention arguably served to radicalise also the Russian and Central Asian 'foreign fighters' who had flocked to Syria (Ratelle, 2016). In this light, in contrast to Russia's self-proclaimed aim of fighting terrorism in Syria, the core motivation for Russian intervention is argued to be its pursuit of protecting (both politically and militarily) its key ally in the region at all costs, with Russia targeting not only those groups considered terrorist, but also the more moderate rebels (Hill, 2013;Notte, 2016). ...
Interpretations of Russia’s military intervention in Syria overwhelmingly focus on Russia’s political motivations. An alternative view foregrounds Russia’s economic motivations, namely, the construction of a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline traversing Iran, Iraq and Syria. This article examines the salience of Russia’s economic motivations and considers two related aspects: First, if Russian intervention aims to secure areas of strategic importance for the proposed pipeline. Second, if Russian intervention realises longer term political and commercial interests that include proposed future pipeline projects. The evidence suggests Russian military policies towards Syria are unlikely to be motivated primarily by the prospect of a proposed gas pipeline, but that regime consolidation is a more immediate policy goal. This article then posits that Russian intervention has a distinct ‘dual logic’ aimed at integrating the interests of key regional actors into a transnational energy network, while stabilising Russia’s regional dominance within this network.
... Jean-Francois Ratelle and Cerwyn Moore have correctly pointed out that a significant Chechen and North Caucasian diaspora did exist in regions of the former Ottoman Empire, namely in Turkey, and to lesser extent in Syria and Jordan, which facilitated the process of recruitment and transfer of North Caucasian fighters to Syria. [8] Yet, religious affinity, which was manifested in a concern over the plight of Sunni Muslims and a readiness to fight jihad against the Russian 'infidel' state and its Alawite ally Bashar al-Assad, rather than ethnic affiliation seems to have been the determinant factor pushing North Caucasians and, more specifically, Dagestanis to join the insurgencies in Syria and Iraq. While ethnic ties may have also helped to facilitate the flow of North Caucasus jihadists-especially Chechens-to Syria and Iraq, mobilisation and framing occurred primarily, if not exclusively, along religious jihadist lines. ...
This article analyses the mechanisms and the logic behind the large flow of young Dagestani Muslims to the Middle East, to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq-either to fight jihad or simply to live under Shari' a law. It examines the reasons behind the decision taken by many Dagestanis to fight jihad in Syria and Iraq, rather than at home in the North Caucasus, in support of the Caucasus Emirate insurgency. The article addresses this conundrum through the powerful lenses of Social Movement and Collective Framing Theories. It argues that an aggressive ISIS online propaganda campaign framed around effective messages of Muslim victimhood, the glories of the Islamic State, and the duty to carry out jihad-as well as very effective personal face-to-face recruitment efforts carried out by adherents of the Islamic State in Dagestan-played a key role in mobilising young Dagestani Muslims to emigrate to Syria and Iraq. These elements, together with the territorial successes of the Islamic State on the ground seem to account for the significant flow of North Caucasus Muslims, Dagestanis in particular, to the Middle East. Furthermore, for those willing to fight jihad against Russia's 'infidel' regime, cost-benefit analysis argued in favour of joining the fight in Syria and Iraq over fighting at home in Dagestan.
... However, these cases do not display any Far North specifics and can be observed in the whole of Russia, one of the main sources of volunteer fighters to the Syrian-Iraqi war theater. 50 ...
This article advances the notion of “Polar Islam” to describe the birth and structuring of Muslim communities in Russia’s Arctic cities. It does not assert that Arctic conditions have created an entirely specific Islam; most of the features attributed here to “Polar Islam” can easily be found in other regions of Russia. Yet the climatic conditions, remoteness, and heavy industrial character of these cities contribute to accentuating certain characteristics that mold the social landscape in which Muslims live, thereby offering a fascinating regional case study of the development of Islam. This article first explores the emergence of Islamic symbols—mosques—on the Arctic urban landscape and the institutional struggles around the control of this Polar Islam. It then delves into Muslim communities’ cultural adaptation to their new Arctic identity. The blossoming of this Polar Islam confirms that Islam is no longer geographically segregated in its traditional regions, such as the North Caucasus and the Volga-Urals; it has spread to all the country’s big cities. In this respect, Arctic cities are at the forefront of Russia’s societal transformations.
Could the Caspian Region replace Russia's or the Persian Gulf's immense energy potential with their energy resources? Yunis Gurbanov explores the strategic importance of the region in post-USSR Eurasian policies of major global actors, namely China, the EU, the USA, and Russia, and examines Azerbaijan's, Kazakhstan's, and Turkmenistan's oil and gas resources as alternatives to conventional suppliers. He shows that the Caspian region's resources could serve as alternative energy sources on a global level, mitigating dependence on traditional suppliers and stabilizing energy prices.
In the years 2015-2021, Russia’s rank in Global Terrorism Index became lower every year. In 2015 and 2016, it was classified as third among the European countries, behind Ukraine and France. In the following period (2017-2021), the United Kingdom also found itself ahead of Russia, which fell to the fourth position. The present article has the form of a quantitative analysis. The research goal is to identify trends related to terrorism that take place in the Russian Federation in the years 2015-2022 (in some parts, the analysis covers the time span between 2015 and 2021, due to lack of data). According to the hypothesis: The phenomenon of terrorism in Russia is closely related to the activities of jihadist organizations, and groups with a different profile pose a marginal threat. Quantitative analysis of the attacks conducted in the analyzed period will enable the verification of the hypothesis and determine the prospects for the development of this aspect.
This paper examines the relationship between prior conflict experience and the impact of foreign fighters on armed groups. This paper addresses the findings in existing research that describes foreign fighters as both assets and liabilities by disaggregating foreign fighters into first-conflict foreign fighters and veteran foreign fighters. While prior experience determines the potential impact of foreign fighters, I introduce the concept of foreign fighter integration to understand how this experience is utilized or leveraged by armed groups. The theory-building framework helps explain why we see certain groups leverage foreign fighters in ways that shape their repertoires of violence, tactics, or even ideology, while, in other instances, the influence of foreign fighters appears to be limited – with any consequent effects restricted to the small factions into which foreign fighters have been assigned. Using this theoretical framework of experience and integration, I re-examine in the cases Somalia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to demonstrate how and where foreign fighters impact armed groups.
Este artículo tiene como objetivo aportar datos complementarios, fiables y replicables sobre el conteo de víctimas provocadas por las guerrillas del Cáucaso norte, para explicar su actual debilidad. La metodología empleada es el análisis de contenido de todas las publicaciones realizadas entre 2010 y 2019 en su órgano oficial de propaganda, Kavkaz Center. Esto se complementa con un análisis del contexto histórico. Se concluye que existe una coincidencia general en el aumento y la disminución de las variables producción propagandística y víctimas causadas a lo largo del tiempo. Por tanto, el escrutinio de la propaganda de las guerrillas ayuda a conocer su vigor con mayor certidumbre que si solo se tiene en cuenta el número de ataques perpetrados. Replicar el análisis en otros contextos permitiría conocer si puede establecerse una norma en ese sentido.
How can researchers obtain reliable responses on sensitive issues in dangerous settings? This Element elucidates ways for researchers to use unobtrusive experimental methods to elicit answers to risky, taboo, and threatening questions in dangerous social environments. The methods discussed in this Element help social scientists to encourage respondents to express their true preferences and to reduce bias, while protecting them, local survey organizations, and researchers. The Element is grounded in an original study of civilian support for the jihadi insurgency in the Russian North Caucasus in Dagestan that assesses theories about wartime attitudes toward militant groups. We argue that sticky identities, security threats, and economic dependence curb the ability of civilians to switch loyalties.
This article intends to revisit the role of foreign fi ghters in the Chechen war and its aftermath, looking particularly at their impact on Islamic developments in Chechnya and Dagestan during the 1990s–2010s. The article challenges the argument, which is predominant in the literature, that foreign jihadists were primarily responsible for transforming the Chechen insurgency from a secular movement into a religious one. Instead, it argues that Islamist tendencies and Salafi circles were present in the North Caucasus before the outbreak of the First Chechen war. Secondly, this article contends that local Salafi jamaats, in conjunction with foreign jihadist fi ghters, provided the mobilization structures and the ideological framing for the radicalization of the Chechen/ North Caucasus rebel movement. By examining the Salafi -jihadist discourse of both foreign and local Salafi s operating in Chechnya and Dagestan in the 1990s and 2000s, the article shows how foreign Salafi s infl uenced and helped shape the ideological framing of local Salafi politicians and rebel jihadist groups. Yet, this article also shows that many of these Salafi -jihadist projects failed to gain broader societal support. They did not resonate with the local populations in Chechnya and Dagestan in the 1990s–2000s. A fi nal section of this article looks at events in the past decade, particularly at developments since the emergence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In this context, the article explains why many young Muslims in Dagestan became themselves foreign fi ghters and travelled to Syria/Iraq to fi ght for and live in the Islamic State. It concludes that Salafi projects, although not indigenous to the region, prospered as a result of the interaction between local Salafi s and foreign jihadist fi ghters and recruiters.
Islamic law denotes as haram any forbidden behavior, object, beverage, or food. Despite subscribing to a similar Salafi ideology, very few jihadi groups use violence against haram targets (e.g., brothels, casinos, statues, liquor stores, mixed sex schools, and gay clubs). This study argues that haram-centered violence unites ethnically-mixed jihadi groups by fostering a superordinate Islamic identity that enables them to overcome their collective action problems. As a result, ethnically-mixed Salafi jihadi groups deploy haram targeting much more than homogenous ones. Using new disaggregated group-level data, our analyses demonstrate that the ethnic structure of Salafi jihadi groups shapes haram targeting, both in Dagestan and on a global scale. The article discusses these findings and directions for future research on religious violence.
This article reviews and discusses the Russian foreign policy towards several countries in the Post-Soviet Space (Tajikistan, Ukraine and Georgia), and the Middle East (Syria). The Russian policy towards its near abroad shows elements of both (neo-)realism and constructivism. A realist perspective of Russian foreign policy seems evident as Russia pursues its own national (or imperial) geopolitical interest. However, it may not explain the Russian interventions satisfactorily. Analysing Russia’s intervention in these conflicts, it is important to look also at Russia’s own geopolitical vision; i.e. how Russia views the world, notably its near abroad, and Russia’s place, role or even mission in it. Russia has reacted to the NATO and European Union (EU) enlargements in its (former) geopolitical spheres of influence and has helped its ally Bashar Assad remain in power in Syria. The conflict in Ukraine is not irrelevant to that in Syria and the Russian experience in Chechnya and Tajikistan may have codetermined Russian intervention in Syria.
The article explores the broad social and relational drivers behind mobilization of Chechens into armed jihad in the Levant. It suggests that the core mobilizing tool in a process toward violent (re-)action is a narrative that projects the Other as so different from, and so dangerous to the Self that the use of violence is legitimized. Moreover, the shift to more radical representations of the other group occurs in a mutual pattern of imagining and interaction between groups. The mobilization of Chechens into armed jihad is explained with reference to the physical and social exclusion of Chechens in Russia and how these experiences have been interpreted and narrated on the one hand and the attempted inclusion of Chechnya/North Caucasus by the global jihadi milieu on the other hand.
This paper focuses on foreign fighter mobilization in the North Caucasus within the context of the similar motivations stemming from the Russian-Chechen wars and the Syrian Civil War. This paper seeks answers to the questions of what the conditions that facilitate the flow of the North Caucasian foreign fighters into Syria are and what the role of Russian-Chechen wars and other historical and social factors in this process is. This study proposes and applies an analytical framework of historical legacy, existing networks, and radicalized identity on the North Caucasian case. The empirical analysis is based on the examination of the expressions made by three North Caucasian fighters in Syria: Abdulhakim Shishani, Muslim Shishani, Salakhuddin Shishani. This study concludes that there is a historical continuity in the codes of radicalization and insurgency in the region from the past to present and same motivations may prompt foreign fighter mobilization in future conflicts.
The extant theory of ethnic defection rests on the importance of ethnic identity shift and loyalism toward the regime, which were thus far presented as key explanations of side switching in ethnic conflicts. This article challenges the validity of these claims and proposes an alternative theoretical argument. This study argues that individuals mobilize against their coethnics on the side of government that explicitly challenges and opposes ethnonationalist aspirations of their own ethnic group due to perceived obligation of ethnic responsibility to protect their ethnic values. Ethnic defection is likely to occur when and if the rebels are suspected by their coethnics of violating or disregarding sociocultural, ideological, or religious values of their ethnic group. Third-party prorebel intervention is likely to further aggravate or even trigger ethnic defection. This argument is examined empirically in the case of progovernment mobilization during East Ukraine conflict in 2014 to 2015. Microlevel interview data from Ukraine demonstrate that Ukrainian Russian speakers mobilized for the government side, driven by the strong sense of ethnic responsibility, engendered in the perception that separatists misrepresent ethnic values of Ukraine’s Russian speakers.
Öz Amerika Birleşik Devletleri'nin Irak'ı işgali sonrasında ortaya çıkan IŞİD (Irak Şam İslam Devleti) örgütü, Suriye ve Irak'ta kontrol ettiği toprakların büyüklüğü ve başta Ortadoğu'da olmak üzere, ABD, Avrupa ve Afrika gibi birçok farklı coğrafyada gerçekleştirdiği sansasyonel terör eylemleriyle dünya gündemine oturmuştur. Örgüt, bölgesel, küresel ve ideolojik ajandasını gerçekleştirebilmek için yoğun bir propaganda faaliyeti yürütmekte ve bu amaçla gerek geleneksel gerekse yeni medya araçlarını etkin bir şekilde kullanmaktadır. Propaganda, IŞİD tarafından bir "cihat" sahası olarak görülmekte, örgüt elindeki bütün imkânlarla savaşı bu yeni "cepheye" taşımaktadır. Birçoğu vahşet içerikli olan söz konusu propaganda faaliyetleri, örgütün sürekli olarak gündemde kalmasını sağlamaktadır. IŞİD, gerçekleştirdiği terör eylemleri ve bu eylemler üzerinden şekillendirdiği propaganda ile Batı'da yükselen İslamofobiye katkı sağlamaktadır. Stratejik anlamda son derece pragmatist bir yapı olan IŞİD, üretilen İslamofobiyi başta Batılı ülkelerde yaşayan Müslümanlar olmak üzere, örgüte yeni katılımcılar kazandırmada kullanmaktadır. Bu anlamda, IŞİD ile yükselen aşırı sağ ve İslamofobik oluşumlar arasında simbiyotik bir ilişki bulunmaktadır. Abstract The terrorist organization called IS (Islamic State), which emerged after the invasion of Iraq by the United States of America, has reached the center of attention by the size of the land it controlled in Syria and Iraq, as well as sensational terrorist attacks it performed in different places such the USA, Europe and Africa, but especially in the Middle-East. The organization is holding an extensive propaganda activity in order to realize its regional, global and ideological agenda, and with this purpose it effectively uses both traditional and new media tools. Propaganda is considered to be a field for "jihad" for IS, and the organization is carrying the war to this "front" with all of its resources. The propaganda activities most of which have violent content help the organization to constantly stay relevant. IS contributes to the Islamophobia that is rising in the West with the terrorist attacks it conducts and the propaganda that it shapes through these attacks. IS, which is a highly pragmatic structure in the strategic sense, uses the resulting Islamophobia for recruiting new members for the organization, especially from among Muslims living in Western countries. In this sense, there is a symbiotic relationship between IS and emerging far-right and Islamophobic movements.
Following the collapse of the USSR, a violent jihadist organization called the Caucasus Emirate emerged in Russia, before subsequently splitting up in 2015 when most of its members swore allegiance to the Islamic State. The root causes of violent radicalization are complex but, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), there are certain universal “push factors”: perceptions of injustice, human rights violations, lack of rule of law, social-political exclusion and widespread corruption. Since all the factors coincide in the North Caucasus, the hypothesis of this study is that the lack of rule of law has been one of the main push factors leading to violent extremism in the specific case of the Republic of Ingushetia.
Despite their small number, foreign fighters in jihadist groups from the country of Georgia fighting in Syria and Iraq have played a significant role in the formation and leadership of several militant organizations. This study utilizes a sample of 29 Georgian citizens who died in the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts to ascertain the overall dynamics that shape foreign fighter mobilization and recruitment in Georgia. Notably, the study finds that substantial percentages of the foreign fighters originally came from small, isolated rural villages in various regions of Georgia, had family or friendship ties to other foreign fighters prior to leaving for the Middle East, and spent time in a country outside Georgia before progressing onwards to Syria and Iraq. Close, in-person connections and similar experiences and demographics amongst the fighters in the sample provide strong evidence for the thesis that offline personal networks determine foreign fighter mobilization rather than any large-scale socio-economic factor or by “online radicalisation,” thus adding to broader debates concerning foreign fighter mobilization in the post-Soviet space and around the world.
Drawing on unique interviews with former jihadists from Russia's autonomous republic of Dagestan, this article is the first to examine the impact of ethnicity on jihadist groups' methods of organization and operations, primarily in terms of their target selection, local support, and recruitment and leadership policies. It distinguishes between largely monoethnic rural jamaats—or jihadist groups—and multiethnic urban jamaats, pointing to the contested nature of ethnicity, particularly in the latter group. It examines the steps taken by the leadership of urban jamaats to overcome ethnic cleavages and avoid interethnic tension both within the jihadists' ranks and with regard to the local population. The article illustrates that, as a divisive phenomenon in multiethnic urban jamaats, ethnic identity has been deliberately downplayed by the leadership of these groups at the expense of strengthening supra-ethnic Salafi-jihadist identity. The article also highlights the significance of ethnic identity in jihadist groups, in spite of it being contradictory to Salafi-jihadist doctrine.
Authorities are increasingly worried about the large number of Western foreign fighters present in Syria. However, the conflict in Syria is not the first to attract foreign fighters. In this Background Note, Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Prof. Dr. Edwin Bakker investigate three historical cases of foreign fighting: Afghanistan (1980s), Bosnia (1990s) and Somalia (2000s). In this Background Note they aim to give insight into what happened to these foreign fighters after their fight abroad had ended. The authors distinguish eight possible pathways for foreign fighters that can help to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this complex phenomenon.
What threat do foreign Arab jihadists returning from the war in Syria and Iraq pose to their home states and the broader Arab world? Foreign fighters come back as hardened veterans, steady in the face of danger and skilled in the use of weapons and explosives. While in the conflict zone, they will form networks with other radicals, embrace techniques like suicide bombings and beheadings, and establish ties to jihadists around the world. Different countries have different mitigating factors that limit the danger. The presence or absence of strong and focused security services is particularly important. Returnees' ambition, regional focus, lack of discipline, and brutality often mean they create more enemies than they vanquish and anger local populations. Most terrorism will be locally and regionally focused, with international terrorism probably less of a priority. Area regimes can reduce the risk of bleedout by hindering the travel of volunteers and constraining their ability to organize, stressing the internecine nature of the violence in the Sunni Muslim community, and developing effective de-radicalization programs. Regional and international cooperation to monitor and disrupt travel is also valuable. Many regimes, however, are also likely to take advantage of the jihadists' presence to gain more support from the United States, delay democratic reforms, and crackdown on non-jihadist opposition. Improving intelligence sharing and offensive counterintelligence is important, and the United States can play an important facilitating role.
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/k5jS7knicmhZ946BtAih/full
This article describes the development of foreign fighters’ preparatory modes of operation between 2000 and 2013, based on an analysis of 17 closed police investigations and 21 semi-structured interviews with police investigators, public prosecutors, and lawyers. Through the use of grounded theory methods and a crime script analysis, we find that the phenomenon is not as new as is often portrayed. It changes over time as changing opportunity structures have an impact on the activities foreign fighters undertake during the preparation phase. We demonstrate how geopolitical changes, social opportunity structures, and technological developments affect the modus operandi over time. One of the implications of our findings is that the dynamic nature of the foreign fighting phenomenon requires flexible and tailored prevention measures.
Three U.S. geographers analyze the temporal and spatial trends of 17,438 violent events in Russia's North Caucasus region from August 1999 to July 2011, demonstrating that the diffusion of conflict away from Chechnya intensified during the period 2007-2011, as levels of violence rose in neighboring republics. An increasing number of casualties are civilians in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria, the three republics that are the focus of the paper. Employing multiple methods of spatial pattern analysis and geographically sensitive regression models, the authors examine the spatial fragmentation of violence from the perspective of rebel groups operating in the three republics. The analysis documents how the incidence of violence varies dramatically over space (i.e., reflecting the influence of urbanization, strategic location, and physical geographic factors such as elevation and extent of forest cover). Although violence in the North Caucasus region as a whole has declined in absolute terms over the past four years, the authors show how new geographies of violence are developing in the region, underscoring the emergence of republic-based insurgent operations against the various organs of the Russian state. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: H560, H770, O180. 9 figures, 3 tables, 1 appendix, 103 references:
Jihadist foreign fighters have become common in civil conflicts in Muslim countries. While research exists on the impact they have upon returning home, less attention has been given to their influence on the opposition cause that they mobilize in support of. This article looks at the impact that jihadist foreign fighters on the Chechen and Syrian resistance causes, evaluating their influence on oppositional cohesion and ideology, domestic and international perceptions of the movements, and on governmental narratives regarding the conflicts the foreign fighters engage in. It is concluded that foreign fighters have overwhelmingly damaged the Chechen and Syrian opposition movements, making the likelihood of opposition success more remote.
For the first time, a military expert on both Russia and insurgency offers the definitive guide on activities in Southern Russia, explaining why the Russian approach to counter terrorism is failing and why terrorist and insurgent attacks in Russia have sharply increased over the past three years.
The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad is an comprehensive treatment of this 300 year-old conflict. Thematically organized, it cuts through the rhetoric to provide a contextual framework with which readers can truly understand the "why" and "how" of one of the world's longest-running contemporary insurgencies, despite Russia's best efforts to eradicate it.
A fascinating case study of a counterinsurgency campaign that is in direct contravention of U.S. and Western strategy, the book also examines the differences and linkages between insurgency and terrorism; the origins of conflict in the North Caucasus; and the influences of different strains of Islam, of al-Qaida, and of the War on Terror. A critical examination of never-before-revealed Russian counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns explains why those campaigns have consistently failed and why the region has seen such an upswing in violence since the conflict was officially declared "over" less than two years ago.
In the post-September 11 world, Al Qaeda is no longer the central organizing force that aids or authorizes terrorist attacks or recruits terrorists. It is now more a source of inspiration for terrorist acts carried out by independent local groups that have branded themselves with the Al Qaeda name. Building on his previous groundbreaking work on the Al Qaeda network, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman has greatly expanded his research to explain how Islamic terrorism emerges and operates in the twenty-first century. In Leaderless Jihad, Sageman rejects the views that place responsibility for terrorism on society or a flawed, predisposed individual. Instead, he argues, the individual, outside influence, and group dynamics come together in a four-step process through which Muslim youth become radicalized. First, traumatic events either experienced personally or learned about indirectly spark moral outrage. Individuals interpret this outrage through a specific ideology, more felt and understood than based on doctrine. Usually in a chat room or other Internet-based venues, adherents share this moral outrage, which resonates with the personal experiences of others. The outrage is acted on by a group, either online or offline. Leaderless Jihad offers a ray of hope. Drawing on historical analogies, Sageman argues that the zeal of jihadism is self-terminating; eventually its followers will turn away from violence as a means of expressing their discontent. The book concludes with Sageman's recommendations for the application of his research to counterterrorism law enforcement efforts. Copyright
This article posits that the remnants of archaic sociocultural norms, particularly the honour-imposed custom of retaliation, play a crucial role in the process of insurgent engagement in Russia's autonomous republic of Dagestan. Through a series of interviews with former insurgents, this study outlines two retaliation-centred mechanisms: “individual retaliation” and “spiritual retaliation” in order to explain the microcosm of motives behind insurgent activity in Dagestan. In doing so, this study problematizes the role of Salafi/Jihadist ideology as the main impetus for insurgent violence. Reversing the traditional causal link between violence and religion, this study also demonstrates that the development of Jihadist ideology is a by-product of insurgent mobilization rather than its cause.
This article examines foreign fighters and the insurgency in the North Caucasus. The first part of the article addresses conceptual issues concerning the ways that foreign fighters are analysed, posing this more widely in terms of transnational activism. Here I examine the importance of kin and relatedness. I develop this argument in the second part of the article, which examines pan-Islamism and transnational activism in the post-Soviet period. The third section draws attention to the different groups of foreign fighters, as part of a wider activist movement in the North Caucasus. Here I show that a complex group of transnational activists from the Greater Middle East, North Africa, parts of Europe, and Central Asia participated in the conflicts in the North Caucasus. Finally, the article turns to examine volunteers from the North Caucasus who travelled to fight in Syria, concluding with some considerations about the reintegration of returnees and former activists.
One of the major policy concerns surrounding violent conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Russia’s North Caucasus region, Somalia, and Syria has been that these struggles may both attract and breed transnational insurgents, or foreign fighters. Yet despite this growing worry, relatively little is known about the ways in which transnational insurgents influence the domestic struggles they join. Existing scholarship assumes that such “outsiders” strengthen domestic opposition movements by bringing with them fighters, weapons, know-how, and access to finanancial resources. Indeed, access to such assets explains why domestic resistance leaders may initially welcome transnational insurgents. Foreign fighters, however, can also weaken domestic insurgencies by introducing new ideas regarding their objectives and how these struggles should be waged. The introduction of new goals and tactics can not only create divisions with opposition movements, but can also complicate the ability of local leaders to attract and maintain vital public support. Domestic resistance leaders’ willingness and ability to adapt the ideas of transnational insurgents to local conditions is key to determining whether and how foreign fighters strengthen homegrown insurgencies.
Modern jihadism has experienced two distinct crises. The present study analyzes recent developments in jihadism, which can be seen in connection with efforts to solve the latest recruitment crisis of global jihad, and is based on comparative interviews with eight Swedish Jihadists defined as foreign fighters. The study identifies three new trends evident in the interviews comparing Jihadists active in Syria with those who fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia: socialization to global jihad, normalization of jihad, and an increasing use of the doctrine of takfir (i.e., ex-communication). This can be described as indicating the radicalization of local jihad, as the territorially based jihad, championed by Abdullah Azzam, and the global jihad of Osama bin Laden meet in the territorial realities of Syria and Iraq.
The number of European jihadists currently fighting in Syria surpasses that of any comparable past mobilisation. Authorities throughout the continent fear that some returnees from the conflict, having become further radicalised and having acquired technical skills, might carry out attacks in Europe. They sometimes hold up as an example the man alleged to have carried out the shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels in May 2014. The profiles of European jihadists in Syria are extremely diverse. Some have long been involved in militant actions. Others converted to Islam or became radicalised only shortly before travelling to Syria. Some reach the country through recruitment networks, while others travel independently. European countries have reacted to the phenomenon with a mixture of hard and soft measures. They often find it difficult to file criminal charges against individuals seeking to travel to or having returned from Syria because of the problems involved in obtaining sufficient evidence. Various softer measures have been put in place to dissuade individuals from travelling and to rehabilitate returnees.
This article seeks to foster a better understanding of the diffusion of conflict in the North Caucasus. We argue that diffusion of conflict is a dynamic and adaptive process in which outcomes are shaped by the intersection of three social mechanisms—attribution of similarity, brokerage, and outbidding—and the political, social, and religious contexts. We suggest that a distinction should be made between horizontal and vertical processes of diffusion. We also approach the empirical diffusion of conflict from a different perspective, showing that non-Chechen actors have played a key role in both the diffusion process and its outcomes.
This article studies variation in conflict theater choice by Western jihadists in an effort to understand their motivations. Some militants attack at home, whereas others join insurgencies abroad, but few scholars have asked why they make these different choices. Using open-source data, I estimate recruit supply for each theater, foreign fighter return rates, and returnee impact on domestic terrorist activity. The tentative data indicate that jihadists prefer foreign fighting, but a minority attacks at home after being radicalized, most often through foreign fighting or contact with a veteran. Most foreign fighters do not return for domestic operations, but those who do return are more effective operatives than nonveterans. The findings have implications for our understanding of the motivations of jihadists, for assessments of the terrorist threat posed by foreign fighters, and for counterterrorism policy.
A central question in civil war research is how state sponsorship, overseas funding, involvement in illicit economics, and access to lootable resources affect the behavior and organization of insurgent groups. Existing research has not arrived at any consensus, as resource wealth is portrayed as a cause of both undisciplined predation and military resilience. A social-institutional theory explains why similar resource wealth can be associated with such different outcomes. The theory argues that the social networks on which insurgent groups are built create different types of organizations with differing abilities to control resource flows. There is no single effect of resource wealth: instead, social and organizational context determines how these groups use available resources. A detailed comparative study of armed groups in the insurgency in Kashmir supports this argument. A number of indigenous Kashmiri insurgent organizations received substantial funding, training, and support from Pakistan from 1988 to 2003, but they varied in their discipline and internal control. Preexisting networks determined how armed organizations were built and how material resources were used. Evidence from other South Asian wars shows that this is a broader pattern. Scholars of civil conflict should therefore explore the social and organizational processes of war in their research.
Beginning with a historical perspective on foreign fighters, this article then seeks to clarify ambiguities and biases that shape how we often analyze the foreign fighter phenomenon. The central focus is then on the evolving trends and activities of the movement. A new generation of fighters has emerged who are comfortable as terrorists, recruiters, trainers and media propagandist, among other specialties. The author concludes by assessing the significance of the problem today.
The aim of this article is to explore and analyze the role of foreign fighters in the recent episodes of Russo–Chechen violence in the North Caucasus. The article begins by offering a preliminary theoretical consideration of foreign fighters, indicating how the events in Afghanistan combined with the development of a Salafi-Jihadist movement that would shape subsequent conflicts in the North Caucasus throughout the 1990s. The article will then move on to identify the role of Arab foreign fighters in Chechnya, demonstrating how a complex local and global social networks enable and motivate volunteers.
The defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq may generate new threats associated with the dispersal of its fighters in the region and around the world. Veterans of earlier insurgencies and civil wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Chechnya moved from one conflict zone to another, lending combatants valuable skills and networks of support. The flight of Iraq's irreconcilable insurgents is a greater threat to global security than the one posed by the Arab Afghans because of the range of combat experiences and skills acquired in Iraq since 2003. This manuscript revisits the history of Arab veterans of the anti-Soviet struggle in Afghanistan (1979–1989) to draw out lessons for countering the current bleed out from Iraq. It explores the diverse pathways taken by these “Arab Afghans” and the factors that facilitated different patterns of dispersal around the globe. The article concludes with broad strategic recommendations for counterterrorism measures.
The end of the Cold War ushered in a new period of instability in the Caucasus, as groups formerly associated with the Communist Party sought to wrest power from newly formed political movements, which themselves sought independence from the successor to the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent States. In the immediate post-Cold War period a number of alliances, formed by groups with radically different agendas, shaped the ensuing political uncertainty across the region. In Chechnya, a number of historical relationships influenced the formation of nationalist and communist coalitions, particularly in the early and latter part of the twentieth century. Moreover, in the post-Soviet period, a series of coalitions and alliances - such as the Abkhaz Battalion - melded together national and regional groups, which themselves had an impact on the first Russo-Chechen War of the 1990s. Following the end of the first war in 1996, a series of other alliances, partially influenced by religion, linked members of the Chechen diaspora community with indigenous radical figures and foreign jihadis who espoused Salafism. This, in turn, expanded what had ostensibly been a nationalist movement into a regional conflict beyond the borders of Chechnya, a development that sheds light on the second Russo-Chechen War.
Statistics on the national origin of almost one thousand killed and captured foreign fighters in Iraq reveal noticeable differences among Muslim majority countries in their jihadism rate (number of fighters/million population). These cross-national differences are used to test different theories as to the causes of Islamist extremism. The findings do not support those theories which see the cause of jihadism in the political and economic failures of Muslim societies, since the foreign fighters come from the more developed countries. The foreign fighters also come from the more religious societies, and from those societies “occupied” by U.S. or Israeli military forces.
Transnational terrorism is presumed to both foster and feed on intrastate conflicts. Yet few studies have examined the ways in which transnational insurgents — be they terrorists or not — matter. This article theorizes and traces the diffusion mechanisms through which transnational insurgents affect domestic challengers to the state, drawing on the literatures on transnationalism, social movements, and intrastate conflicts. Via mediated or relational diffusion, transnational insurgents can engender learning or emulation on the part of the domestic insurgents, in turn shaping domestic processes of mobilization — shifts in framing of a movement’s goals, tactical innovation, and resource mobilization. The argument is anchored in an empirical analysis of the Chechen wars.
Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus is a gripping account of the developmental dynamics involved in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Fusing a narrative of human agency to his critical discussion of structural forces, Georgi M. Derluguian reconstructs from firsthand accounts the life story of Musa Shanibâwho from a small town in the Caucasus grew to be a prominent leader in the Chechen revolution. In his examination of Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Derluguian discerns how and why this dissident intellectual became a nationalist warlord. Exploring globalization, democratization, ethnic identity, and international terrorism, Derluguian contextualizes Shanib's personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy. He masterfully reveals not only how external economic and political forces affect the former Soviet republics but how those forces are in turn shaped by the individuals, institutions, ethnicities, and social networks that make up those societies. Drawing on the work of Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and, of course, Bourdieu, Derluguian's explanation of the recent ethnic wars and terrorist acts in Russia succeeds in illuminating the role of human agency in shaping history.
Foreign fighters: Transnational identity in civil conflicts
Jihad Joe: Americans who go to War in the Name of Islam
- J M Berger
Halifat? Primanka dlya durakov!” Novaya Gazeta
- Elena Milashina
Syria: Who is Muslim Abu Walid Shishani?” Part One
- Joanna Paraszczuk
JMA Emir Salakhuddin Shishani: ‘We Wanted to go to Chechnya but Found Ourselves in Syria
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- Gulya Arifmezova
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- Christopher J Wright
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- Europol
Gonna Get Myself Connected’: The Role of Facilitation in Foreign Fighter Mobilizations
- Timothy Holman
Suicide Bombing: Chechnya, the North Caucasus and Martyrdom
- Cerwyn Moore
How Russia Allowed Homegrown Radicals to go and Fight in Syria
- Maria Tsvetkova
They're Coming: Measuring the Threat from Returning Jihadists
- Jytte Klausen
Returning Foreign Fighters: Criminalization or Reintegration? Doha: Brookings Institution
- Charles Lister
Umar Shishani’s Right-Hand Man Calls on North Caucasian Jihadis to Join is in Dagestan & Chechnya
- Joanna Paraszczuk
Leaderless Jihad Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
- Marc Sageman
Ideology and Conflict: Chechen Political Nationalism Prior to, and During, Ten Years of War
- Ekaterina Sokirianskaia
The Rise and Fall of Foreign Fighters in Chechnya
- Paul Tumelty