Insurgency in the North Caucasus

Insurgency in the North Caucasus
Part of Chechen–Russian conflict
Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, meets with FSB head, Alexander Bortnikov, in March 2009, to discuss the ending of the "counter-terrorism operation" in Chechnya.
Date 16 April 2009 – present (15 years, 4 months, 1 week and 1 day) Location Russia North Caucasian Federal District Chechnya Dagestan Ingushetia Kabardino-Balkaria Karachay-Cherkessia North Ossetia–Alania Result Ongoing
Belligerents
Russia Chechnya Dagestan Ingushetia Kabardino-Balkaria Karachay-Cherkessia North Ossetia–Alania Kadyrovtsy Other loyalists	Caucasus Emirate Vilayat Dagestan Vilayat Galgaycho Vilayat Iriston (until 12 May 2009) Vilayat KBK Vilayat Nokhchicho Arab Mujahideen Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade
Commanders and leaders
Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev Anatoliy Serdyukov Vladimir Boldyrev Rashid Nurgaliyev Alexander Bortnikov Alexander Khloponin Ramzan Kadyrov Ramazan Abdulatipov Yunus-bek Yevkurov Yury Kokov Rashid Temrezov Taymuraz Mamsurov	Ali Abu Mukhammad Dokka Umarov † Chechnya: Aslambek Vadalov Aslan Byutukayev Khuseyn Gakayev † Tarkhan Gaziyev Muhannad † Supyan Abdullayev † Abdulla Kurd † Dagestan: Umalat Magomedov † Magomed Vagabov † Israpil Velijanov † Ibragimkhalil Daudov † Rustam Asildarov Ingushetia: Ali Taziev (POW) Said Buryatsky † Dzhamaleyl Mutaliyev † Arthur Getagazhev † Kabardino- Balkaria: Anzor Astemirov † Asker Dzhappuyev † Alim Zankishiev †
Strength
Undisclosed	~600 fighters (government claim, January 2013) ~40 operating groups in the North Caucasus: 10 groups 16 groups 3 groups 5 groups 1 group none
Casualties and losses
961–978 security forces killed (2009–2013) and 2,020–2,384 wounded (2009–2012)	1,755 killed (2009–2014) and 1,632 captured (2009–2013)
434 civilians killed (2010–2012)

The Insurgency in the North Caucasus continued despite the official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009.

The violence is mostly concentrated in the North Caucasus republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia and North Ossetia–Alania. It happened only occasional incidents elsewhere, like at last Pyatigorsk and Volgograd.

The Security Council of Russia secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, mentioned that the situation in Dagestan is the worst in all North Caucasus republics. The extremism rate in Dagestan is now higher than in war-torn Chechnya.

The Russian Interior Ministry stated that 399 terrorist crimes were committed in the North Caucasus in 2013. 242 terrorist crimes were only committed in Dagestan.

Background

Map of the North Caucasus

Some observers have argued, that Russia's efforts to suppress insurgency in the North Caucasus, a border area between the Black and the Caspian Sea, that includes the formerly breakaway Chechnya and other ethnic-based regions, have been the most violent in Europe in recent years, in terms of ongoing military and civilian casualties and human rights abuses. In late 1999, Russia's Premier, Vladimir Putin, ordered military, police and security forces to enter the breakaway region of Chechnya. By early 2000, these forces occupied most of the region. High levels of fighting continued for several more years and resulted in thousands of Russian and Chechen casualties and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. In 2005, Chechen rebel leader, Abdul-Halim Sadulayev, decreed the formation of a Caucasus Front against Russia, among Islamic believers in the North Caucasus, in an attempt to widen Chechnya's conflict with Russia. After his death, his successor, Dokka Umarov, declared continuing jihad to establish an Islamic fundamentalist Caucasus Emirate in the North Caucasus and beyond. Russia's pacification policy in Chechnya has involved, setting up a pro-Moscow regional government and transferring more local security duties to this government.

An important factor in Russia's seeming success in Chechnya has been reliance on pro-Moscow Chechen clans affiliated with regional President Ramzan Kadyrov. Police and paramilitary forces under his authority have committed flagrant abuses of human rights, according to rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and others. Terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus appeared to increase substantially in 2007–2010. In the summer of 2009, more than 442 persons died in North Caucasus violence in just four months as compared to only 150 deaths reported in the entire year of 2008. In the whole year 2009, according to the official figures by the Russian government, 235 Interior Ministry personnel (Defense Ministry and the FSB losses not included) were killed and 686 injured, while more than 541 alleged fighters and their supporters were killed and over 600 detained. In the period from January to June 2011, 95 law enforcement and security agents had been killed and more than 200 wounded fighting militants. Although the rate of increase of terrorist incidents may have lessened in 2010 from the high rate of increase in 2008–2009, the rate of civilian casualties substantially increased throughout the North Caucasus in 2010 and a rising number of terrorist incidents took place outside of Chechnya.

Chechnya

Main article: Vilayat Nokhchicho

The insurgency in the North Caucasus is a direct result of the two post-Soviet wars fought between Russia and Chechnya. The First Chechen War was a nationalist struggle, with both secular and Islamist overtones, for independence from Russia and took place between 1994–1996. After a vicious struggle between Russian federal forces and Chechen separatist guerrillas, Chechnya was granted de facto independence per the terms of the Khasavyurt Accord, signed on 30 August 1996. With a devastated infrastructure and various armed factions, subordinate to specific warlords, the next three years saw Chechnya devolve into a corrupted and criminal state, plagued by armed gangs, an epidemic of kidnappings-for-ransom and the rise of radical Islam in the region as a response to suppression.

In August 1999, an armed incursion of 1,500 Islamic radicals, led by Chechen warlord, Shamil Basayev, and Arab jihadist, Ibn al-Khattab, in support of a Dagestani separatist movement, combined with a series of apartment bombings in Russia, gave Moscow sufficient reasoning for re-invading Chechnya, thus triggering the Second Chechen War, a conflict fought with significant jihadist overtones.

Having learned harsh lessons from the first war, the Russian military, rather than get entangled in messy urban engagements such as that seen in Grozny in 1994–95, relied heavily on aerial bombardment and artillery such as ballistic missiles and fuel air explosives, typically surrounding and then destroying any towns or villages that put up resistance before sending in ground forces for mop-up operations. The second Battle of Grozny in 1999–2000 saw the bulk of Chechen resistance smashed, particularly after a column of some 2,000 fighters attempted to break out of the besieged city in February 2000 and instead walked directly into a minefield that Russian forces had prepared for an ambush. What remained of the decimated rebel units then withdrew into the inaccessible Vedeno and Argun gorges in the southern mountains of the republic in order to wage a guerrilla campaign.

Despite the official claims of peace in the supposedly pacified Chechnya, the republic remains a major center of violence even according to the government statistics. According to the official Russian figures, in the course of one-year period between April 2009 (when the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya was officially ended) and April 2010, 97 servicemen have been killed on the territory of Chechnya; at the same time, government forces there have killed 189 persons claimed to be militants or their collaborators.

Dagestan

Main article: Vilayat Dagestan

Dagestan is the most religious, populous and complex of all the north Caucasian republics. It is double the size of Chechnya and consists of several dozen ethnic groups, most with their own language. The conflict in Dagestan, however, is not between ethnic groups but between Sufism, a syncretic form of Islam which includes local customs and recognises the state, and Salafism, a more traditional form which rejects secular rule and insists that the Salafist interpretation of Islam should govern all spheres of life.

Ingushetia

Main articles: Vilayat Galgaycho and War in Ingushetia

Along with Dagestan, Ingushetia has borne the brunt of the violence in the North Caucasus in recent years. The Islamist insurgency in the republic sprang from the wars in neighbouring Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s.

In June 2004, Ingush and Chechen fighters launched a large-scale attack on Ingushetia's biggest town, Nazran, killing scores of civilians, policemen and soldiers.

As elsewhere in the North Caucasus, the brutality of state security forces has been a major factor, driving young men to join the Islamists. Under the presidency of the former KGB officer, Murat Zyazikov, teams of masked operatives kidnapped, tortured and killed suspected rebels and members of their families. Zyazikov's successor, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, appointed in 2008, has had some success in dampening the violence, although he was seriously injured in a suicide bombing by the militants during his first year in office. Human rights violations by Russian commandos have decreased, but remain widespread.

The capture in June 2010 of Ali Taziev, an ethnic Ingush and one of the top leaders of the Caucasus Emirate, dealt a blow to the jihadists in Ingushetia.

Kabardino-Balkaria

Main article: Vilayat KBK

The insurgency in Kabardino-Balkaria began in the early 2000s and was led by the Yarmuk Jamaat, a militant Islamist jamaat which flourished as a result of persecution of pious Muslims by police and security forces.

In October 2005, several score of the militants launched a raid on the capital of the republic, Nalchik, which left 142 people dead. The guerrillas have also carried out numerous assassinations of government officials and law enforcement officers.

The republic saw a flare-up of violence in late 2010 and early 2011, in the wake of the death of Anzor Astemirov, a senior figure in the Caucasus Emirate and the head of its United Vilayat of Kabarda-Balkaria-Karachai. The new leaders of Kabardino-Balkaria's guerrilla movement, Asker Dzhappuyev and Ratmir Shameyev, preferred a more aggressive approach and the militants murdered several civilians in the republic, including Russian tourists. In response, a shadowy vigilante group called the Black Hawks threatened the relatives of some of the Islamists.

Dzhappuyev and Shameyev were killed in a special operation by security forces in April 2011.

North Ossetia–Alania

On September 9, 2010, a car-bomb attack occurred at a crowded marketplace in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, killing 19 adults and children and injuring over 190. President Medvedev responded, that "we will certainly do everything to catch these monsters, who have committed a terrorist attack against ordinary people. What's more, a barbarous terrorist attack. We will do everything, so that they are found and punished in accordance with the law of our country, or in the case of resistance or other cases, so that they are eliminated."

Vilayat Galgaycho reportedly took responsibility, stating, that the attack was aimed against "Ossetian infidels" on "occupied Ingush lands".

List of clashes in the North Caucasus

• List of clashes in the North Caucasus in 2009

• List of clashes in the North Caucasus in 2010

• List of clashes in the North Caucasus in 2011

• List of clashes in the North Caucasus in 2012

Casualties

Year	Killed	Wounded
2010	754	956
2011	750	628
2012	700	525
2013	529	457

Terrorist incidents

• 2008 Vladikavkaz bombing
• 2009 Nazran bombing
• 2009 Nevsky Express bombing
• 2010 Moscow Metro bombings
• 2010 Kizlyar bombings
• 2010 Stavropol bomb blast
• 2010 Tsentoroy attack
• 2010 Vladikavkaz bombing
• 2010 Chechen Parliament attack
• 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing
• 2012 Makhachkala attack
• October 2013 Volgograd bus bombing
• December 2013 Volgograd bombings

See also

• Nadira Isayeva
• William Plotnikov

External links

• Darion Rhodes, Salafist-Takfiri Jihadism: the Ideology of the Caucasus Emirate, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, March 2014
• Caucasus jihad: Terror tactics back on the horizon?, The Long War Journal, 21 May 2009
• "What Your Children Do Will Touch Upon You", Human Rights Watch, 2 July 2009
• Russia: Protect Rights in North Caucasus Insurgency No Excuse for Abandoning Rule of Law, International Federation for Human Rights, 7 July 2009 (UNHCR)

http://www.start.umd.edu/sites/default/files/files/publications/br/STARTBackgroundReport_TerrorismAndNorthCaucasus_April2013.pdf