Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Terrorism Monitor: The Rise and Fall of Foreign Fighters in Chechnya

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Terrorism Monitor: The Rise and Fall of Foreign Fighters in Chechnya

    Terrorism Monitor
    January 26, 2006 - Volume IV, Issue 2

    The Rise and Fall of Foreign Fighters in Chechnya

    By Paul Tumelty

    The recent killing of Saudi Sheikh Abu Omar Muhammad al-Sayf, a
    religious adviser to the Chechen resistance since 1995, heralded the
    demise of the first generation of Arab mujahideen in Chechnya. Their
    presence has had a profound effect upon the ongoing war in the
    Russian North Caucasus, with Chechnya widely viewed as another
    jihadi front controlled by al-Qaeda. The following aims to
    contextualize Chechnya's "Arab" fighters.

    Background

    Chechen and North Caucasian links with the Middle East stretch back
    to Russian imperial history when these peoples migrated in the
    thousands to modern day Jordan, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. While in the
    latter three countries the Chechens were assimilated over time, in
    Jordan today there still exists a unique community of around 8,000
    Chechens who have preserved their language and cultural traditions.

    After 1990, dozens of Jordanian-Chechens traveled to see their newly
    independent homeland. Among them was Sheikh Ali Fathi al-Shishani,
    an elderly veteran of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and
    an ethnic Jordanian-Chechen. In 1993, Fathi formed a Salafi Islamic
    Jamaat consisting of scores of young indigenous Chechens and some
    Jordanian-Chechens. Following the onset of the Russo-Chechen war in
    December 1994, he was instrumental in facilitating the recruitment
    of Arab fighters from Afghanistan. Among those he personally invited
    was Samir Salih Abdallah al-Suwaylim, better known as "Khattab."

    The Emir

    Emir Khattab was a young, but experienced Saudi Arab-Afghan mujahid,
    who commanded one of the three Arab units that fought in the Tajik
    civil war from 1992. Apparently, he made his decision to fight
    alongside the Chechens after seeing television images of the latter
    wearing Islamic headbands. From Afghanistan, he traveled to Baku
    airport and met with a fellow mujahid. While investigating travel
    routes to Chechnya, he received a letter from Sheikh Fathi via the
    already extant network of Arab financiers and facilitators in Baku,
    inviting him to join the jihad.

    Khattab formed a unit of eight experienced Afghan-Arabs who together
    traveled to Chechnya in February 1995. Once there, he met Fathi and
    arranged the transfer of two-thirds of Fathi's approximately 90
    followers into his personal military command, thus furnishing
    himself with immediate military clout. This company-sized unit was
    then subdivided into sections headed by his deputies (Al-Sharq Al-
    Awsat, May 2, 2002).

    Khattab was also able to enhance his status by befriending the
    Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who later declared him his brother.
    This symbolic gesture was important given that the fiercely
    independent Chechens are wary of outside influence in their internal
    affairs. Khattab fully cooperated and coordinated with the Chechen
    rebel command, and he and his commanders—including his first deputy
    Abu Bakr Aqeedah, Aqeedah's successor Hakim al-Medani, Abu Jafar al-
    Yemeni, Yaqub al-Ghamidi and his then deputy and the future emir of
    the foreign fighters, Abu Walid al-Ghamidi—were able to impart some
    of their tactical experience from the anti-Soviet jihad.

    Over time, the logistical networks from the Middle East and
    Afghanistan via Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey solidified, with
    Fathi continuing to play a role in recruitment, largely through the
    dissemination of rebel videos and CDs, at that time a novel tool
    that was conceived of by Khattab.

    In total, approximately 80 Middle Eastern Arabs fought against the
    Russians during the 1994-96 war [1]. Alongside them were some North
    Africans and Turks, the three main constituent groups of the foreign
    contingent that continue to fight today. They were regarded by the
    rebel leadership as an anomaly, although useful nonetheless and
    welcomed as a result, particularly for their ability to attract
    finances. While their military influence was negligible within the
    larger war effort, their militant ideas and religious influence
    began to percolate through war-torn Chechen society after August
    1996.

    An Islamic State

    Khattab's vision for an Islamic State in the North Caucasus was only
    partially complete with the Chechens' 1996 victory. He believed that
    jihad must establish God's law in one country, which can then be
    used as a base for expanding the Islamic state. To that end, he
    established a number of training camps after 1996, paying young
    North Caucasians to attend two week courses in which they acquired
    religious training and weapons instruction. A trickle of Arabs
    continued to arrive in the region via established networks, adding
    to his original core grouping that survived the war almost intact.

    President Aslan Maskhadov's secular rule after 1996 was opposed by
    an array of Islamists who formed a pseudo-military-religious
    alliance that eventually forced him to implement Shariah law. Around
    30 "courts" were established throughout the republic, with religious
    guidance from Sheikh Abu Omar al-Sayf, operating from the template
    of the Sudanese model. It received additional religious sanction by
    Abdurakhman, a young Jordanian-Chechen who succeeded Sheikh Fathi as
    head of the Islamic Jamaat following the latter's death in 1997.

    This botched attempt to impose alien concepts on this devastated and
    highly Sovietized society failed, at the very least, to restore
    order. Maskhadov soon decreed that Abdurakhman, two of his Arab
    deputies and the Dagestani Islamist Bagautdin Magomedov leave the
    republic. Yet, he did not single out Khattab, who by then had
    acquired too much power to warrant public denunciation.

    Al-Qaeda

    Khattab has often been described as an associate of Osama bin Laden,
    given that the two Saudis both fought in the anti-Soviet jihad. Yet
    although they were in Afghanistan at the same time, Khattab was only
    a 17-year-old mujahid when he arrived in 1987 and he persistently
    refuted any connection with bin Laden, stating that there is "no
    relationship because of the long distance and difficult
    communications" (Al-Jazeera, January 21, 2000). He constantly
    reiterated this sentiment in interviews, simply referring to bin
    Laden as a "good Muslim."

    There is now evidence, however, that both sides were in contact via
    representatives during the 1990s and early 2000s. That
    correspondence amounted to a rigorous debate over strategy, as both
    men had an entirely different worldview and each attempted to
    convince the other of the superiority of their respective approaches
    to jihad. This was also characterized by a personal rivalry between
    them, particularly as Khattab's stature grew within the Islamist
    community (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, December 9, 2004).

    Although he occasionally highlighted the oppression of Chechnya's
    Muslims, bin Laden was obsessed by the Judeo-Christian alliance and
    focused his strategy upon attacking the "far enemy." Khattab on the
    other hand sought to establish an Islamic system in Chechnya and
    then use it as a base from which to forcefully expand into
    neighboring territories. In August 1999, he and Shamil Basayev led
    hundreds of fighters in an invasion of Dagestan to implement this
    vision, which ultimately failed. Right up until his death in 2002,
    Khattab never threatened to attack the United States.

    Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had a deeper interest in
    events in the North Caucasus: "if the Chechens and other Caucasus
    mujahideen reach the shores of the oil-rich Caspian, the only thing
    that will separate them from Afghanistan will be the neutral state
    of Turkmenistan. This will form a mujahid Islamic belt to the south
    of Russia..." [2]. Before al-Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad merged into
    bin Laden's umbrella group in 1998, he embarked upon a fact-finding
    mission to Chechnya to investigate the establishment of a camp for
    his followers.

    In January 2000, links with Afghanistan deepened when a delegation
    led by Chechen ideologue Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev traveled to Kandahar
    and the Taliban formally recognized Chechnya as an independent state
    (Kavkaz Center, January 19, 2000). At the time, Yandarbiyev, who by
    this stage had moved to the Middle East together with other
    Dagestani ideologues, denied that Chechens were being trained in
    Afghanistan, although a training facility was established in
    Kandahar (The News, Pakistan, February 22, 2000).

    Chechnya is well-known as one of the more difficult jihadi fronts,
    where the climate is extremely harsh and, due to linguistic and
    physical differences and their dearth of local knowledge, the Arab
    fighters have been prone to death or capture. For these reasons, the
    Chechen rebels sought to regulate the number of foreign fighters,
    and where possible only accept those with adequate military
    experience. Khattab employed a representative in Kandahar, known as
    Dahak, a Moroccan, who vetted recruits for their suitability. By
    default, the number of foreign fighters was also regulated by
    logistics and the difficulties of traversing the terrain. Indeed,
    the biographies of dozens of jihadis reveal their desire to fight in
    Chechnya, but show their failure to do so. Moreover, the post-9/11
    American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq diverted would-be
    recruits to these fronts, external events that caused a significant
    change in the approach of the Arab leadership in Chechnya.

    New Approaches

    The strictly controlled method of operating within the Arab
    leadership in Chechnya allows only the emir to air his views; the
    sole exception was Abu Omar al-Sayf. After Khattab's death in June
    2002 and the smooth ascension of Abu Walid, he began to alter the
    tone of his interviews, strongly contrasting with those of his
    predecessor. Both Abu Walid and his successor, Abu Hafs al-Urdani,
    began to advocate attacks against the U.S. Despite the Arab presence
    being partially influential in Chechnya on religious terms, for
    example when Abu Omar al-Sayf issued a fatwa to justify the first
    Chechen suicide bombing, the rationale for the change in emphasis
    was driven by the necessity for the Arab fighters to continue their
    primary role as fundraisers. Their utility otherwise, in the eyes of
    the rebels, is defunct.

    After 9/11, U.S. pressure on Persian Gulf-based organizations
    suspected of terrorist financing drastically slowed funding to the
    Chechens, as openly confirmed by both Abu Walid and Abu Hafs (Al-
    Watan, December 12, 2003). In an attempt to attract new potential
    contributors amid the diversification of funds to clearer cut
    causes, both leaders broadened their rhetoric, aligning it roughly
    with the aims of al-Qaeda.

    Abu Hafs has been thrust into an information campaign by the post-
    Maskhadov leadership under Sheikh Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev. Both men
    appear to have a close relationship, assisted by Sadulayev's ability
    to speak Arabic. A new video shows Abu Hafs, whose real name was
    recently revealed as Yusuf Amerat, sitting to the left of Sadulayev,
    together with his Sudanese deputy, giving the impression of real
    Arab influence in decision making [3].

    Amerat has also exploited the links the U.S. claims he has with Abu
    Musab al-Zarqawi, who strongly supports the Chechen cause. Both men
    have sent one another moral support via jihadist websites. Al-
    Zarqawi's home city of Zarqa hosts some of the Jordanian-
    Chechen/Circassian population and he previously expressed a desire
    to fight in Chechnya. Interestingly, a source has claimed that at
    one stage Khattab lived in Zarqa (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, October 13,
    2005).

    While Arab military influence was negligible during the 1994 to 1996
    war, Khattab was instrumental in organizing the invasion of Dagestan
    in 1999, which led to the resurgence of the ongoing war. The Arab
    financial and religious input has sustained and changed the dynamic
    of the Russo-Chechen wars, as well as allowed the Putin
    administration to paint the Chechen resistance as al-Qaeda. Since
    1994, the number of foreign fighters has rarely, if at all, risen
    above 50 at any one time and is not likely to have exceeded 500
    combatants.

    Notes

    1. Aslan Maskhadov's and his deputy's estimate, RFE/RL Russian
    Service.
    2. Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, A. Zawahiri.
    3. See Kavkaz Center, video section (Russian version).
Working...
X