In my recent post about the bombings in Volgograd I wrote the following:
The Dagestani terrorists have learned the lessons of Chechnia well, and they are never trying to hold on to any territory or to create some kind of Wahabi statelet in Dagestan: quite to the contrary, day after day after day, the security forces engage the Dagestani terrorists who each time end up either captured or dead (mostly the latter). The reason for that is obvious: the Dagestani terrorists are weak and they cannot take on even the local cops. But they are just strong enough to strap explosives on some young man or woman and send them to blow themselves up on a bus or train station.
The footage I want to show here today is a typical example of an almost weekly occurrence in Dagestan: the security forces are tipped-off by local people (most Dagestanis absolutely *hate* terrorists) and the show up in the dark of night to quietly evacuate all the inhabitants of the building except the suspected terrorists. As dawn breaks, the security forces call the terrorists and offer them to surrender. When the latter typically refuse, their relatives are given the opportunity to talk to them with the hope that they will let go those who do not want to die, or who cannot make the decision. In today’s video you see a grandmother talking to her daughter who refuses to surrender but who accepts to have the grandmother take away the her grand-daughter. Finally, the security forces launch an assault on the terrorists and kill them all. Here is the footage of what occured yesterday in the city of Khasavyurt:
At the end of the video some of the weapons found inside the appartment are shown.
Marat Shikhshaitov |
Over the past year I have seen many such videos on Russian TV daily news shows and they all pretty much go along the same scenario. A much less frequent scenario, but which also happens every few months or so, is that a terrorist group is spotted somewhere in the mountains and a multi-agency search and destroy mission is arranged between the local police, the special police, elements of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Spetsnaz forces from the FSB (the military Spetsnaz GRU typically does not participate in such operations). This is a much more dangerous operations and the terrorists often succeed in wounding or even killing a few security agents before being killed themselves.
As for the terrorists, they typically either kill cops on checkpoints on plant a car-bomb near a police station or court building. From time to time they like to kill a local official or a local imam who dares to openly disapprove of their actions. The vast majority of these attacks are executed inside Dagestan although some reach into the othe parts of southern Russia, or even further.
Aisha Idigova |
This is the sad reality of life in Dagestan today were people are trying to live their daily lives against a background of apparently neverending security operations and while the security services clearly have the upper hand, at least so far, the psychological and economic toll on the republic is terrible even if relatively few Dagestanis are themselves direct victims of this slow, creeping war between Wahabi terrorists and the security agencies. Just imagine having to go to school, shopping or to work in a place where you might at any time find yourself near a bombing or a security operation.
A few words about the terrorists now. They are also rather typical. Yesterday, three bodies were found after the assault, one has yet to be identified, but the two others are well known to the security services. They are Marat Shikhshaitov, born in 1987, he left his wife and three kids to join the Wahabi underground in 2012 where he participated several bombings and common criminal operations, and Aisha Idigova, born in 1986, she is the widow of another well-known terrorist – Ruslan Magometov – who was killed in 2006 by the security forces during an operation similar to the one which took place yesterday.
In a tactical sense the security forces has scored another “victory”: three dangerous terrorists have been killed, no civilians or security forces were hurt. But on a strategic level, this is yet another small defeat for Dagestan because it further strenghthens the image of Dagestan as a hotbed of terrorism and extremism. What is particularly worriesome is that there is no end in sight for all the reasons I mentioned in my previous post and which can be summed up by saying “Dagestan is not Chechnia”. There really is no local solution, no Dagestani Kadyrov, and the only possible ‘solution’ would be to do almost the exact opposite of what has been done in Chechnia – instead of giving Dagestan a maximal degree of independence and autonomy, the Kremlin could declare martial law, suspend all the local authorites, flood the republic with security forces and basically reorganize all of Dagestani society, in particular the power structures, along non-ethic lines. At least that is the theoretical option. To what degree this is actually a realistic plan is very much debated with a lot of very smart and well informed observers resolutely opposed to such a “solution”. I am personally also rather dubious about such an approach.
The other solution is to keep going on the current course and just hope that a day will come when the Dagestanis will get really fed up with what is happening now. And when I say “the Dagestanis” I don’t mean a majority simply because a majority is *already* fed up. No, I mean an overwhelming super-majority which would demand that the various local business and ethnic elites get together and agree to take action. I believe that such an effort has to be primarily the responsabilty and initiative of the local authorities and not of the Federal Center. All that the latter can do is provide support and ressources.
Whether such a change in the Dagestani society will happen I don’t know. Nor can I predict, even in general terms, how long it would take. All I know is that for the foreseeable future real change is unlikely and that the weekly reports from Dagestan about more terrorist being killed by securty forces will continue.
The Saker
I would agree with Bashar Al-Assad who, in an interview lately, said that it´s not so much the military aspect that is the most worrisome, that can be dealt with effectively but much more so their ideology, the Wahhabism and preventing it from infecting younger generations.
That must be the long term goal for Russia. The west has started to understand what kind of fire they have been playing with since the 80´s and that it can´t be controlled or trusted and that it always will bite their arses anyway but it would be a safe bet to say that the Wahhabi option remains their NR:1 for Russsia…
Mikhas.
The Moscow Times is reporting that Marat Shikhshaidov may have been responsible for the Moscow metro train bombings in 2010.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/moscow-bombings-suspect-killed-in-dagestan/492387.html
If accurate, a truly nasty piece of work goes to a far greater reward than he deserves. He was apparently already thought to be dead. Oh, well; second time’s a charm.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dear Saker,
There is one point I would make (which is actually touched on in your articles), which is that whilst Russia was faced by a Wahhabi jihadi insurgency in the Caucasus ten years ago, that is no longer the case today. The insurgency as such has been defeated. It’s last big effort was the Beslan atrocity. We no longer have a situation where the jihadis can contest and hold territory for any period of time. As you rightly say, they cannot even take on the local police any more, far less the regular army or the specialised security forces (Alpha, Vympel etc) deployed from Moscow.
What we are now looking at is a terrorist campaign involving fewer than a thousand individuals in total (400-700 might be a reasonable guess).
This is not to understate the danger these people represent. Even 400 armed and violent people (to take the minimum number) can cause an enormous amount of disruption. Moreover these sort of terrorist campaigns can take a very long time to defeat provided they have (1) some external support and (2) a minimal degree of support from the local people, amongst whom terrorists must hide, obtain supplies and recruits etc.
The second requirement is more important than the first. If support drains away even the most determined terrorist campaign will fail. I suspect that is what is actually happening (it is striking how the terrorist campaign has now become confined essentially to Dagestan and no longer seems to effect Chechnya or Ingushetia), which is one reason why I think the government’s response to this campaign is the right one.
Having said this, it is important to say that a terrorist campaign however disruptive and violent can never by itself threaten the integrity of a state and government such as Russia’s.
@Alexander: whilst Russia was faced by a Wahhabi jihadi insurgency in the Caucasus ten years ago, that is no longer the case today. The insurgency as such has been defeated.
Yes, I agree, and this is why I refer to them as terrorists rather than as insurgents, a term which I do use for the armed bands which fought against the Federal forces in the 2 Chechen wars. When I used the word “insurgents” I mean any armed group which fights the regime forces for the control of terrain whereas a “terrorist” is, in my opinion, somebody who has given up on the idea of holding anything, not even a cave in the mountains, and who falls back to trying to psychologically impress the regime and/or the general public by attacks which cannot yield a military advantage. These are my own rule-of-thumb working definitions and not legal definitions, of course. In the case of the Chechens the insurgency was indeed comprehensively defeated in 2004-2005 and what is taking place in Russia today is clearly not an insurgency but only a garden variety terror campaign. For one thing the Chechens had inherited HUGE weapons stocks courtesy of Grachev & Co. whereas the modern terrorists are completely outgunned by the cops: in the video I posted the cops are using machine-guns and grenade launchers whereas the terrorists seem to have some kind of submachine gun, a pistol and a hand grenade (iirc). No armor, no sniper rifles, no mortars, no heavy machine guns, not demolition equipment, no artillery, etc. – all stuff which the Chechens had in absolutely huge numbers.
I would even add that I believe that a re-emergence of an insurgency in the Caucasus is quite impossible. Russia truly has formidable military capabilities in the region including the most combat ready army of the Russian military (the 58th), plenty of special forces of all kinds, air forces equipped with the latest high-tech, tough as hell border guard forces, plenty of special police, etc. Most of these forces do not participate in any law-and-order or anti-terrorist operations simply because the local cops and SWAT units are enough, but they are there and they could, if needed, literally level down any hill or wipe a village off the surface of the planet in just a few hours if given the order and everybody in the Caucasus knows that. So the very notion of holding on to some terrain is essentially a one-way suicide mission: yeah, you will take it alright, and you will die the same day.
Let us also remember the Georgians are in no condition to try to interfere any more and that the current Border Guard forces are now holding on lockdown a border which used to be essentially open to resupply the insurgency. Besides, the Georgians are not stuck between Russia and Armenia which are very much under way to become the core of the Eurasian Union (with Belarus and Kazakhstan) so they *really* might want to be careful in what they do (actually, I think that the crap is over around there – now they want access to the Russian markets, a much more reasonable objective).
All this is to say that I fully agree with you – terrorists can hurt Russia in human terms, by committing atrocities of various kinds (I *am* afraid of Sochi!) but they will not achieve any political objectives. As for insurgents, they are gone for a long long while (unless the frigging liberals come back to power, which I don’t see happening either).
Still, a “Dagestani Karyrov” (maybe a purely religious figure?) would make me feel much better.
Have a wonderful week-end, my friend, and thanks a lot!
Cheers,
The Saker
Hi saker- take two
warning: mom talking
I was thinking how very un-human that a mother or father would forsake their child for such a cause
Having and raising a child is the ultimate cause for a human being
An important fact that has become rather lost on humans as of late.
Not just brainwashed terrorists
sigh..
sorry about that…
my dyslexic ways are apparent unless I am really careful
I have a question do you think when Putin threw out the ngo this might have been when the Chechens woke up realizing that they were being lead down the wrong paths by the west?
Thanks for your time on this story.
Hey Saker,
I’ve been trying to send this post a couple of times now from my phone, but it never worked, so finally I send it from my computer.
I recently read a blog article by a self described “Russian Nationalist” which basically concludes that Putin destroys Russia from within. I found it on a white nationalist American blog which sometimes offers fascinatingly different perspectives on many issues (other’s are quite crazy and many of them racist of course). I read your blog with great interest since September and found many of your insights regarding Russia and Putin enlightening and logical. The linked blogpost basically contradicts your assessment regarding Putin and Russia and I would be very interested to hear from you what you think about the basic hypotheses of the article, that A) Putin oppresses the genuine nationalist movement and B) that Putin’s policies will lead to the weakening and demise of Russia as a nation. The fact that it does not come from the usual western pundits makes it interesting. Are the concerns he lists real? If so are they justified or exaggerated?
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2013/12/in-russia-ten-years-in-jail-for-extremist-speech/#more-21729
Greetings.
D.