Islamizing an Insurgency: Considerations on Radicalization in the North Caucasus [İsyanı İslamlaştırmak: Kuzey Kafkasya’da Radikalleşme Üzerine Değerlendirmeler]

Year 2019, Volume: 4 Issue: 7-8, 1 - 36, 31.05.2019

Patrick Ambrogio

https://doi.org/10.21488/jocas.557107

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Bu makale, Çeçenistan ve
Kuzeydoğu Kafkasya'daki isyanın 1990'lar ve 2000'lerdeki çatışmalar sırasında
radikalleşmesini incelemektedir. Sovyet sonrası dönemde, bölgedeki ayrılıkçı
hareket seküler ve milliyetçi köklerini saldı ve daha radikal ve İslamcı bir
karakter kazandı. Bu araştırma, Rus kuvvetleri tarafından kullanılan
karşı-direniş taktiklerinin isyanın radikalleşmesine katkıda bulunup
bulunmadığını ya da bu radikalleşmenin yabancı savaşçılar ve Kafkasya’ya ait
olmayan ideolojiler gibi dış etkenlerin sonucu olup olmadığını analiz
etmektedir. Kuzey Kafkasya'da Rusya Federasyonu direnişe karşı, Amerika
Birleşik Devletleri ve diğer Batı ülkelerinde ortak olan nüfus merkezli
yaklaşım yerine, düşman merkezli yaklaşım kullandı. Bu araştırma, yabancı
misyonerlerin, savaşçıların ve ideolojilerin varlığının, çatışmanın dini açıdan
ilham almasına neden olan ana katalizörler olduğu sonucuna varmaktadır. Bazı
liderler Çeçen davasını destekleme sözü veren, yabancı, İslamcı radikallerle
işbirliğinde bulunduklarından dolayı, bağımsızlık hareketinin içsel hizipçiliği
de bu süreci kolaylaştırdı. Rusya’nın radikalleşmeye katkıda bulunan direniş karşıtı
taktikleri halkı ağır psikolojik travmalara maruz bıraksa da isyanın
dönüşümünün asıl nedeni değildir.

Keywords

Rusya, Kuzey Kafkasya, İslam, Çeçenya, isyan

Islamizing an Insurgency: Considerations on Radicalization in the North Caucasus [İsyanı İslamlaştırmak: Kuzey Kafkasya’da Radikalleşme Üzerine Değerlendirmeler]

Abstract

This article examines the radicalization of the insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. The North Caucasus nationalist and secular movement of the 1990s became radicalized and Islamized by the 2010s. This research analyzes whether or not Russian counterinsurgency tactics contributed to the radicalization of the insurgency or if this process was the result of external factors, such as the influence of foreign fighters and ideologies not native to the North Caucasus region. In the North Caucasus, the Russian Federation employed the enemy-centric approach to counterinsurgency, rather than the population-centric approach common to the United States and other Western countries. This research concludes that the influence of foreign missionaries, fighters, and ideologies was the primary reason that led to the conflict becoming religiously inspired. While the Russian counterinsurgency tactics also contributed to radicalization, they were not the cause of the insurgency’s Islamization.

References

• Akhmadov, Ilyas and Miriam Lanskoy. The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
• Al-Shishani, Murad Batal. “The Rise and Fall of Arab Fighters in Chechnya.” In Volatile Borderland: Russian and the North Caucasus, edited by Glen E. Howard, 265-293. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2012.
• Askerov, Ali. Historical Dictionary of the Chechen Conflict. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
• Baev, Pavel K. “The Targets of Terrorism and the Aims of Counter-Terrorism in Moscow, Chechnya and the North Caucasus.” In Volatile Borderlands: Russia and the North Caucasus, edited by Glen E. Howard, 132-158. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2012.
• Baiev, Khassan, Ruth Daniloff and Nicholas Daniloff. Grief of My Heart: Memoirs of a Chechen Surgeon. New York: Walker & Company, 2005.
• Bin Ali, Mohamed and Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, “Salafis and Wahhabis: Two Sides of the Same Coin?” RSIS Commentary, no. 254, 2016.
• Bodansky, Yossef. Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda’s Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.
• Broxup, Marie Benningsen. “The Russian Experience with Muslim Insurgencies: From the North Caucasus in the 19th Century to Afghanistan and Back to the Caucasus.” In Volatile Borderlands: Russia and the North Caucasus, edited by Glen E. Howard, 92-113. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2012.
• Bruce Ware, Robert and Enver Kisriev. Dagestan: Russia Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North Caucasus. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2010.
• Cohen, Ariel. Russia’s Counterinsurgency in the North Caucasus: Performance and Consequences. Carlisle Barracks: United States Army War College Press, 2014.
• Derluguian, Georgi. “The Forgotten Complexities of the North Caucasus Jihad in the Nineteenth Century.” In Caucasus Paradigms: Anthropologies, Histories, and the Making of a World Area, edited by Lale Yalcin-Heckmann and Bruce Grant, 75-92. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2008.
• Dunlop, John. “Putin, Kozak and Russian Policy Toward the North Caucasus.” In Volatile Borderlands: Russia and the North Caucasus, edited by Glen E. Howard, 44-69. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2012.
• Eichler, Maya. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012.
• Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.
• Felgenhauer, Pavel. “Degradation of the Russian Military: General Anatoli Kvashnin,” Perspective 15, no. 1, October—November 2004, https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_12/acprint (accessed April 2018).
• Firestone, Reuven. Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Gammer, Moshe. “Empire and Mountains: The Case of Russia and the Caucasus.” Social Evolution & History 12, no. 2 (2013): 120-142.
• Gammer, Moshe. “The Beginnings of the Naqshbandiyya in Daghestan and the Russian Conquest of the Caucasus.” Die Welt des Islams 34, no.2 (1994): 204-217.
• Gammer, Moshe. The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006.
• Gentile, Gian. “A Strategy of Tactics: Population-Centric COIN and the Army.” Parameters 39, no. 3 (2009): 1-12.
• George, Julie. The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
• Ginsburg, Thomas. “Russian Region Plays Independence Card in Referendum.” Last modified April 19, 1993. https://www.apnews.com/67d09a3b50d0c8e0f395a0726ba40f11.
• Hahn, Gordon M. Russia’s Islamic Threat. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
• Hughes, James. Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2007.
• King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Laruelle, Marlène. “Kadyrovism: Hardline Islam as a Tool of the Kremlin,” Russie.Nei.Visions, No. 99, Ifri, March 2017.
• Lieven, Anatol. Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
• Moore, Lucy. “Violence in the North Caucasus.” Center for Strategic and International Studies. 2 September 2010, accessed 03 May 2018. https://www.csis.org/analysis/violence-north-caucasus-6.
• Murphy, Paul. The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror. Washington, DC: Brassey’s Inc, 2004.
• Myers, Joseph. “The Counterinsurgency Operation in Chechnya.” Master’s thesis, University of Leeds, 2013.
• Myers, Stephen Lee. The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.
• Nasritdinov, Emil, Zarina Urmanbetova, Kanatbek Murzakhalilov, and Mametbek Myrzabaev. “Vulnerability and Resilience of Young People in Kyrgyzstan to Radicalization, Violence and Extremism: Analysis across Five Domains.” Paper presented at the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Washington, D.C., February 2019.
• Nekrich, Aleksandr. Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1981.
• Paul, Christopher. “Moving Beyond Population-Centric vs. Enemy-Centric Counterinsurgency.” Small Wars and Insurgencies 27, no. 6 (2009): 1019-1042.
• Richmond, Walter. “Russian policies towards Islamic extremism in the Northern Caucasus and destabilization in Kabardino-Balkaria.” In Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus: Post-Soviet Disorder, edited by Moshe Gammer, 86-101. London: Routledge, 2008.
• Richmond, Walter. The Circassian Genocide. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2013.
• Russell, John. Chechnya – Russia’s ‘War on Terror.’ New York: Routledge, 2007.
• Russell, John. “Terrorists, Bandits, Spooks and Thieves: Russian Demonisation of the Chechens before and since 9/11.” Third World Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2005): 101-116.
• Sakwa, Richard. “The Revenge of the Caucasus: Chechenization and the Dual State in Russia.” Nationalities Papers 28, no. 5 (2010): 601-622.
• Schaefer, Robert. The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad. Santa Barbara: Praeger Security International, 2010.
• Smirnov, Andrei. “The Kremlin’s New Strategy to Build a Pro-Russian Islamic Chechnya.” North Caucasus Weekly 7, no. 9 (2006), https://jamestown.org/program/the-kremlins-new-strategy-to-build-a-pro-russian-islamic-chechnya-2/.
• Smith, Sebastian. Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya. New York: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2006.
• Sokirianskaia, Ekaterina. “Ideology and Conflict: Chechen political nationalism prior to, and during, ten years of war.” In Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus: Post-Soviet Disorder, edited by Moshe Gammer, 102-138. London: Routledge, 2008.
• Tucker, Ernest. Russian-Muslim Confrontation in the Caucasus. Edited by Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker, and Gary Hamburg. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.
• Vatchagaev, Mairbek. “The Chechen Resistance: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.” In Volatile Borderland: Russian and the North Caucasus, edited by Glen E. Howard, 203-236. Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2012.
• Williams, Brian Glyn. Inferno in Chechnya: The Russian-Chechen Wars, the Al Qaeda Myth, and the Boston Marathon Bombings. Lebanon: ForeEdge, 2015.
• Zelkina, Anna. In Quest for God and Freedom: The Sufi Response to the Russian Advance in the North Caucasus. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
• Zhemukhov, Sufian N. “The North Caucasus: How Islam and Nationalism Shaped Stability, and Conflict in the Region.” In Religion, Conflict, and Stability in the Former Soviet Union, edited by Katya Migacheva and Bryan Frederick, 35-64. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2018.
• Zürcher, Christoph. The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus. New York: New York University Press, 2007.