Paul Goble
Staunton, October 13 – As Russian-Iranian relations deteriorate and the divisions between jihadists and ethno-nationalists in the North Caucasus resistance deepen, Tehran may provide “massive reinforcements to the detachments of [Caucasus Emir] Doku Umarov, something that could lead to more terrorist violence in the region and across Russia.
In an essay on the “Chastny korrespondent” portal, Denis Kolchin argues that if the Iranian leadership decides to send more “Muslim volunteers” to Russia’s North Caucasus, it will only be continuing a program that it and other jihadist groups abroad have been pursuing for more than a decade (www.chaskor.ru/article/modzhahedy_v_rossii_20436).
Even though Russian forces have managed to kill some of them, Kolchin notes, “foreign Muslim volunteers continue to arrive in the North Caucasus.” And given the deterioration of relations between Russia and Iran, there is a very real threat that “Tehran can provide massive reinforcements of Persian mujahidin Doku Umarov’s detachments.”
Over the last 15 years, he continues, such Muslim fighters have arrived in the North Caucasus from “the Islamic countries of Africa, from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Albania, from the Crimea (Crimean Tatars)” and even from Indian Kashmir, Chinese Uyghuristan and Malaysia.
The most numerous and high profile arrivals came at the time of “the active phases of military operations: in 1995-96 and in 1999-2000,” when many of the arrivals were well-trained military operatives from Jordan and Saudi Arabia and when these mujahidin assumed command positions in the North Caucasus resistance.
As Kolchin points out, “the phenomenon of mujahidism [in its modern form] was born during the period of the Afghan war (1979-1989). At that time, against Soviet forces fought not only representatives of the Afghan peoples but also volunteers from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and the Philippines.”
In the early 1980s, there were some 3500 Arab fighters in Afghanistan, and by the middle of that decade there were 18,000 of them in the units subordinate to Gulbeddin Hekmatiar, an indication of just how many people in the Muslim world are interested in such activities and how quickly they can be dispatched to places of conflict.
When Doku Umarov proclaimed the formation of the Caucasus Emirate in 2007, he spoke the language of these mujahidin. “The Caucasus is occupied by the unbelievers and those who have betrayed the faith and is thus part of the Dar ul-Harb or Abode of War, and our immediate task consists in making the Caucasus part of the Dar ul-Islam or Abode of Peace.”
That can be done, Umarov continued, by “establishing shariat on this land and driving out the unbelievers.” After that is achieved, he continued, “we must return to ourselves all the historical lands of the Muslims, and these borders are situated beyond the borders of the Caucasus” – “the program maximum” of his movement, Kolchin says.
That agenda, religious not national, is especially attractive to potential mujahidin from abroad, and they will be dissuaded if and only if Russian forces inflict a decisive defeat of the militants, but the current situation in that region is “very, very far from that.” Consequently, the foreign mujahidin will continue to arrive.
Kolchin devotes most of his article to the origins and careers of four notable foreign mujahidin in the North Caucasus: Amir ibn al-Hattab, Abu al-Walid al-Gamidi, Abu Haf al-Urdani and Haled Yusuf Mohammad al-Elitat. While the first have been eliminated, the last remains active and was reportedly behind the split in the Emirate leadership this past summer.
All these people came from the Arab world, but for the Russian Federation, Kolchin argues, “the experience of Bosnia is more valuable” because “one of the organizers and sponsors of Muslim resistance there, in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, was Iran,” whose “Corps of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution” helped train and lead Muslim units there.
“Today,” Kolchin concludes, “there is a definite risk that Russia may partially fall into a situation like Yugoslavia.” Relations with Iran have deteriorated, and Tehran is likely to response by dispatching “unofficial representatives” of the Corps of Guardians to the North Caucasus to strengthen the Islamist resistance.
Iran can do that through the already “tested” corridor through Azerbaijan. Baku has killed some of the people passing through that corridor, Kolchin says, but the widely reported “death of these persons in no way means that the project of transit through Azerbaijan has been closed.” Consequently, for Russia, “the jihad is continuing.”
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Window on Eurasia: Moscow City Will Remain a Foreign Policy Player, Russian Analyst Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, October 13 – Even though President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin want a manager rather than a politician as mayor of the Russian capital, the incoming Moscow chief will continue to play a major foreign policy role, albeit one not as “extravagant” as that of former mayor Yuri Luzhkov, according to a Russian analyst.
Luzhkov was by turn famous and infamous, Moscow State University expert Aleksandr Karavayev says, for his foreign policy pronouncements, including his calls for Siberian river diversion to Central Asia and the restoration of Russian control of the Crimea. And the current tandem does not want to see his replacement making such declarations.
But Karavayev, a specialist on the former Soviet space, points out, Moscow’s new mayor by virtue of the importance of the Russian capital not only for the Russian Federation but for all the post-Soviet states as well as for many foreign investors will continue to have a major foreign policy role to play (www.politcom.ru/10870.html).
Given the requirement that the new mayor conform to current political realities and adopt “a Medvedev-style” approach, few have focused on this aspect of the work of the future mayor, Karavayev notes, but Moscow centrality, its role as “not simply the capital” but “the first and main display case” of Russia, means that this aspect of the new incumbent will be important.
Moreover, the Moscow State specialist continues, there is every reason to think that the importance of the capital is only going to increase, something that means the new mayor will need to be able to carry out this foreign policy task efficiently and effectively and in this way be the implementer of the city’s own distinctive foreign policy.
The new mayor will not be able to make the kind of “extravagant” foreign policy statements that characterized the Luzhkov period, although it should be remembered, Karavayev notes, that Luzhkov’s remarks were “not only” a reflection of his views but “an essential addition to the foreign policy of the Russian Federation.”
Consequently, the new mayor may very well fulfill a similar niche in Moscow’s approach, but “under the present conditions of the high capitalization of the Moscow economy,” Karavayev argues, “there are other foreign policy tasks [that need to be performed] in any case, stylistically.”
“The exotic views of the charismatic mayor will now recede, but the very theme of the support [“sheftstvo”] of Moscow over a number of regions of the Commonwealth of Independent States apparently will remain.” Moreover, the new mayor will play a major role in attracting and distributing foreign investments by virtue of its relative size and international importance.
Moreover, Karavayev continues, “the CIS capitals will follow carefully how Moscow reso0lves its transportation and social-economic problems and how its organizers its city economy,” and they will especially track how Moscow deals with “legal illegal migration,” given that Moscow is “the capital” of both in the CIS.
And at the same time, “in Moscow are concentrated all Russian problems of inter-ethnic relations” and it is in the Russian capital that “the ability to resolve in an adequate fashion the problem of communications between those coming from the depressed regions of the Russian Caucasus and indigenous Muscovites” is being tested.
As a result, what the new Moscow mayor says and does on all these issues will have foreign policy consequences, Karavayev says. And that will be true even if – and perhaps especially if – the central powers that be deny to themselves that the incoming head of this special federal subject will play that role.
Staunton, October 13 – Even though President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin want a manager rather than a politician as mayor of the Russian capital, the incoming Moscow chief will continue to play a major foreign policy role, albeit one not as “extravagant” as that of former mayor Yuri Luzhkov, according to a Russian analyst.
Luzhkov was by turn famous and infamous, Moscow State University expert Aleksandr Karavayev says, for his foreign policy pronouncements, including his calls for Siberian river diversion to Central Asia and the restoration of Russian control of the Crimea. And the current tandem does not want to see his replacement making such declarations.
But Karavayev, a specialist on the former Soviet space, points out, Moscow’s new mayor by virtue of the importance of the Russian capital not only for the Russian Federation but for all the post-Soviet states as well as for many foreign investors will continue to have a major foreign policy role to play (www.politcom.ru/10870.html).
Given the requirement that the new mayor conform to current political realities and adopt “a Medvedev-style” approach, few have focused on this aspect of the work of the future mayor, Karavayev notes, but Moscow centrality, its role as “not simply the capital” but “the first and main display case” of Russia, means that this aspect of the new incumbent will be important.
Moreover, the Moscow State specialist continues, there is every reason to think that the importance of the capital is only going to increase, something that means the new mayor will need to be able to carry out this foreign policy task efficiently and effectively and in this way be the implementer of the city’s own distinctive foreign policy.
The new mayor will not be able to make the kind of “extravagant” foreign policy statements that characterized the Luzhkov period, although it should be remembered, Karavayev notes, that Luzhkov’s remarks were “not only” a reflection of his views but “an essential addition to the foreign policy of the Russian Federation.”
Consequently, the new mayor may very well fulfill a similar niche in Moscow’s approach, but “under the present conditions of the high capitalization of the Moscow economy,” Karavayev argues, “there are other foreign policy tasks [that need to be performed] in any case, stylistically.”
“The exotic views of the charismatic mayor will now recede, but the very theme of the support [“sheftstvo”] of Moscow over a number of regions of the Commonwealth of Independent States apparently will remain.” Moreover, the new mayor will play a major role in attracting and distributing foreign investments by virtue of its relative size and international importance.
Moreover, Karavayev continues, “the CIS capitals will follow carefully how Moscow reso0lves its transportation and social-economic problems and how its organizers its city economy,” and they will especially track how Moscow deals with “legal illegal migration,” given that Moscow is “the capital” of both in the CIS.
And at the same time, “in Moscow are concentrated all Russian problems of inter-ethnic relations” and it is in the Russian capital that “the ability to resolve in an adequate fashion the problem of communications between those coming from the depressed regions of the Russian Caucasus and indigenous Muscovites” is being tested.
As a result, what the new Moscow mayor says and does on all these issues will have foreign policy consequences, Karavayev says. And that will be true even if – and perhaps especially if – the central powers that be deny to themselves that the incoming head of this special federal subject will play that role.
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