The rise of Islamist extremism in Kabardino-Balkariya

Demokratizatsiya

Volumn 13, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 543-594

  Hahn, Gordon M ^a  

^a ST PETERSBURG STATE UNIVERSITY   (Russian Federation)

Author keywords

Chechnya; Islamism; Jihad; Kabardino Balkariya; Terrorism

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC RELATIONS; ETHNOPOLITICS; POLITICAL CHANGE; TERRORISM;

EURASIA; KABARDINO-BALKARIA; RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 33645800788     PISSN: 10746846     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3200/DEMO.13.4.543-594     Document Type: Article

References (304)

1. Chechens had been involved in kidnapping for ransom, preventing civilians from fleeing battle zones, and deliberately locating military equipment and forces in civilian areas. Both sides' abuses have been documented by numerous independent outside organizations. For information on the first Chechen war, 1994-96, see the Russian Human Rights Center "Memorial" publication, Rossiya-Chechnya: tsep' oshibok i prestuplenii (Moscow: Zvenya, 1998).
2. For information on the second war, see Human Rights Watch (HRW), The "Dirty War" in Chechnya: Forced Disappearances, Torture, and Summary Executions (New York: HRW, 2001);
3. Human Rights Watch, Swept Under: Torture, Forced Disappearances, and Extrajudicial Killings during Sweep Operations in Chechnya (New York: HRW, 2002);
4. th U.S. Congress 2nd Session and Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Democracy and Human Rights Trends in Eurasia and East Europe: A Decade of Membership in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 49;
5. Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Situation in Chechnya: Briefing Paper to the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (New York: HRW, 2003);
6. "Russia" in U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 2004);
7. and Human Rights Center, Deceptive Justice: Situation on the Investigation of Crimes against Civilians Committed by Members of the Federal Forces in the Chechen Republic during Military Operations, 1999-2003 (Moscow: Memorial, 2003).
8. On life in today's Chechnya, see Médecins Sans Frontières, The Trauma of Ongoing War in Chechnya: Quantitative Assessment of Living Conditions and Psychosocial and General Health Status among the War-displaced in Chechnya and Ingushetia (Amsterdam: MSF, 2004).
9. In elections that were neither free nor fair, an official figure of 80 percent elected former chief mufti of Chechnya Akhmed Kadyrov as the republic's president, and 90 percent approved a new republic constitution in 2002. In April 2004, Kadyrov was assassinated by Chechen rebels. Chechen MVD Chief Alu Alkhanov was backed by the Kremlin and elected Kadyrov's successor with 73 percent of the votes.
10. See U.S. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), 58-59, 64, 109, 125, 149, 160, 165-66, 191, 222, 233, 524;
11. October 30, 2004, declassified portions of the top-secret U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report, "Intelligence Information Report/Swift Knight - Usama Ben Laden's Current and Historical Activities," (October 1998);
12. Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 135, 179-80;
13. and C. J. Chivers and Steven Lee Myers, "Chechen Rebels Mainly Driven by Nationalism," New York Times, September 12, 2004, 1, 9.
14. The video showed female suicide bombers wearing Islamic veils before a green banner inscribed with the Arabic words "Allahu akhbar" [God is great]. Throughout the video, the captors used bin Laden's slogan: "We desire death even more than you desire life."
15. See Faye Bowers, "Al Qaeda's New Young Guard: A Shift in Tactics," Christian Science Monitor, February 13, 2004, 1;
16. Walter Pincus, "Zarqawi Is Said to Swear Allegiance to Bin Laden," Washington Post, October 19, 2004, A10;
17. and Don Van Natta, Jr., "Who Is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?" New York Times, October 10, 2004, E3.
18. That link includes the exchange of guerilla tactics and experience. Russian officers claim that the main reason that Chechen guerrillas developed great expertise in the use of mines and other explosives is the assistance they have received assistance from foreign Islamists. The U.S. intelligence unit known as the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), which has been studying bomb shrapnel from around the world, has determined that an Islamist bomb-making network spreading across Chechnya, Africa, East Asia, and the Middle East appears to be sharing designs and materials for car bombs and improvised explosive devices. David Johnston, "U.S. Agency Sees Global Network for Bomb Making," New York Times, February 22, 2004, 1, 9.
19. On TEDAC, see U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Laboratory 2003 Report (Quantico, VA: FBI, 2004), 17.
20. On limited illiberal democracy under Yeltsin see Gordon M. Hahn, Russia's Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition, and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (New Brunswick: Transaction, 2002), chap. 11.
21. On aspects of Putin's soft authoritarian counterrevolution, see Gordon M. Hahn, "Putin's 'Stealth Authoritarianism' and Russia's Second Revolutionary Wave," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Regional Analysis, http://www.regionalanalysis.org/publications/regionalvoices/ en/2004/04/616B350A-D9CD-49F59416ECAD7F5F1EAE.ASP (accessed April 21, 2004);
22. and Harley Balzer, "Managed Pluralism: Vladimir Putin's Emerging Regime," Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 3 (July-September 2003): 189-227.
23. On the limits of de-democratization, see Leon Aron, "Institutions, and Restoration, and Revolution," Russia Outlook (April 15, 2005), http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050415_ROInstitutions_g18264.pdf.
24. See the results of the 2004 Russian presidential elections in Muslim republics as compared to other republics in Hahn, "Putin's 'Stealth Authoritarianism.'"
25. Consolidated democracies experience little terrorism. Harsh authoritarian regimes have a somewhat higher risk of terrorism. Alberto Abadie, "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 10589 (October 2004), http://www.nber.org/papers/w10859.
26. A partial list of Putin's antifederalist policies includes: (1) the creation of extra-constitutional federal districts [FOs] to restore the "executive vertical" and coordinate federal authorities' interference in regional politics, especially elections through the use of administrative resources (police, courts, tax collection, finances, state mass media); (2) hypercentralization of lawmaking by requiring regional laws to comply with federal law under a federal constitution that renders federal law supreme in all spheres of life that it chooses to address; (3) the creation of a mechanism for "federal intervention" allowing the president, with court approval, to call elections to a regional parliament should it refuse to follow court findings that regional executive branch decrees or orders, legislative acts, or constitutions violate the constitution or federal law; (4) termination of most, if not all, power-sharing treaties between the federal government and individual regions, ending regional autonomy and official federative asymmetry; (5) counterreform of the Federation Council from a legislative body composed of elected officials to one of officials appointed by the Russian president; (6) recentralization of budget revenues; (7) dissolution of the national autonomous okrugs, making the national republics, including the titular Muslim republics, nervous; (8) virtual elimination of consociational minority veto for regional legislatures over federal legislation; (9) presidential appointment rather than popular election of regional governors and republic presidents (and perhaps city mayors and district heads); and (10) elimination of no single-mandate districts seats in the State Duma and a switch to a fully PR or party list voting system. Assimilative policies have included: (11) a ban of ethnic and religious parties; (12) ban of the use of non-Cyrillic alphabets in response to Muslim Tatarstan's decision to Latinize the Tatar language; and ultimately watered-down proposals to (13) introduce a course on Russian Christian Orthodox "culture" into Russia's schools and (14) forbid Muslim women from wearing the khidzhab (veil) in passport photographs. See Gordon M. Hahn, "Russian Federalism under Putin," in Current Developments in Russian Politics, vol. 6, ed. Stephen White, Zvi Gitelman, and Richard Sakwa, 148-67 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).
27. See also Gordon M. Hahn, "The Past, Present, and Future of the Russian Federal State," Demokratizatsiya 11, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 343-62;
28. Gordon M. Hahn, "Putin's Federal Reforms: Integrating Russia's Legal Space or Destabilizing Russian Federalism," Demokratizatsiya 9, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 498-530;
29. Gordon M. Hahn, "The Impact of Putin's Federative Reforms on Democratization in Russia," Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 2 (April-June 2003): 114-53;
30. and Jeffrey Kahn, Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law in Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
31. Traditional federalist theory and various elaborations posit territorial federalism - a usually constitution-based division of power between the national level and subnational governments - or a more extensive "asymmetric" federalism, which gives special autonomy (self-rule, self-governance) to regional governments that are often ethno- or religioterritorial governance units, so-called ethnofederalism. William H. Riker, Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance (Boston,: Little Brown, 1964);
32. and Carl J. Freidrich, Trends of Federalsim in Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger, 1968).
33. This can include special authority for some territorial subunits (asymmetry) either institutionalized in a constitution as in India or by renewable agreements between federal and regional governments as in Spain and early post-Soviet Russia. Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000);
34. and Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, ed., The Self-Determination of Peoples: Community, Nation, and State in an Interdependent World (London: Lynn/ Rienner, 2002).
35. Arend Lijphart argued the effectiveness of Belgian, Swiss, and Indian consociational or consensus-based federative governance, which gives special power-sharing rights to national minorities or their regional autonomies through mechanisms such as intercommunal "grand coalitions" and the minority veto. According to Lijphart, consociational federative mechanisms preclude tyrannies of the majority that frustrate ethnonational minorities' aspirations to protect their cultural, linguistic, and confessional identities from assimilative policies and their territories' natural resources from expropriation by the Center. Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Conscensus Government in Twenty-one Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984);
36. Arend Lijphart, "The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational Interpretation," American Political Science Review 90, no. 2 (June 1996): 258-68.
37. Democratic socialists Otto Bauer and Karl Renner proposed for the Austro-Hungarian Empire a rarely applied "corporate federalism" or non-territorial cultural autonomy for minority communities to allow extra-territorial self-governance on cultural, religious, and linguistic issues. Freidrich, Trends of Federalsim in Theory and Practice;
38. and Lijphart, Democracies, 183-84.
39. David Sisk, "Power Sharing in Multiethnic Societies: Principal Approaches and Practices," in Preventing Deadly Conflict: Strategies and Institutions, Proceedings of a Conference in Moscow, Russian Federation, August, 14-16, 1996, ed. Gail W. Lapidus and Svetlana Tsalik, 34-67 (New York: Carnegie, 1998).
40. Hechter, Containing Nationalism, 145-49.
41. Horowitz counterposes the prescriptions noted above with "integrative" ones, arguing that by "over-institutionalizing" interethnic and interconfessional cleavages, the state and intercommunal comity are weakened. See Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985);
42. and Donald L. Horowitz, "Making Moderation Pay," in Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies, ed. Joseph Montville (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990).
43. The studies by Alan Krueger and David Laitin and by J. A. Piazza overlook the subregional level, however. See Alan Krueger and David Laitin, "Kto Kogo? A Cross-country Study of the Origins and Targets of Terrorism," mimeo, November 2003;
44. and J. A. Piazza, "Rooted in Poverty? Terrorism, Poor Economic Development and Social Cleavages," Terrorism and Political Violence, Spring 2005.
45. Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970).
46. The Muslim Crimean Khanate's activities brought Islam to the entire Cherkess, western Ossetia, and farther southwest to Abkhazia (a secessionist republic of present-day Georgia) and further entrenched Islam among the Kabards, Balkars, and their neighbors. The Ottoman Turks also assisted in the spread of Islam among the Cherkess. Alexandre Bennigsen and S. Enders Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 7.
47. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 159.
48. Pagan beliefs put a break on radical Islamicization, since the latter rejects the former as heretical and cause for severe punishment including death, as they are interpreted as a sign of nonbelief. Thus, some local councils of elders in the KBR have already mobilized to protect youth from the influence of Islamist "pseudoreligious extremism." In the largest high mountain settlement in the KBR, Verkhnyaya Balkariya, the council of elders and Verkhnyaya Balkaria's imam, Mukhamed-khadzhi Tsikanov, took on this responsibility. "Sovet stareishin Verkhnei Balkarii vospitaet molodezh v dukhe Islama," Islam.ru (March 25, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/press/rus/2005-03-25/ #7718.
49. Remnants of pagan beliefs can be found among all of Russia's ethnic Muslims and such beliefs intermixed with Islamic elements to produce uniquely North Caucasian and more narrowly ethnic-based customs tied to and separate from Islam. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 251-53.
50. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 199.
51. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkiemusli'mane," 255-56;
52. and Shireen T. Hunter, Islam in Russia: The Politics of Identity and Security (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004), 65.
53. Oleg Guseinov, "Stroite'stvo khrama Marii Magdaliny priostanovlena iz-za otsutsviya sredstv," Gazeta yuga, (April 21, 2005), http://www.gazetayuga.ru/archive/2005/16.htm. Although to some extent, the growth in the number of mosques is not a direct indication of the growth of Islamic belief, since some official muftis build mosques in anticipation of worshippers or as a way to attract funding, nevertheless, there is a rough correlation.
54. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkiemusli'mane," 254-56.
55. See "'Polufabrikat' S. Kazanova schitaet musulman 'nebmenyaemymi i 'sektantami,'" Islam.ru (February 28, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/ press/rus/2005-02-28/#7440.
56. For example, on August 30, 2001, the official Russian news service, Interfax, reported that the leaders and people of Kabardino-Balkaria on August 30 were marking the eightieth anniversary of their "statehood" granted by the then young Soviet regime and the 444th anniversary of their 1557 "union" with Russia. RFE/RL, Newsline 5, no. 166 (August 31, 2001).
57. Although Kabardinian society included tribal, clan, and feudal features, its most pivotal feature was a nine-class structure, ranging from princes to slaves. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide, 195.
58. Bilal Laipanov, "Islam v istorii i samosoznanii karachaevskogo naroda," in Islam v Evrazaii: sovremennye etnicheskie i esteticheskie kontseptsii sunnitskogo Islam, ikh transformatsiya v massovom soznanii i vyrazhenie v iskusstve musulmankskikh narodov Rossii, ed. M. V. Iordan, R. G. Kuzeev, and S. M. Chervonnaya, 170-98 (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiya, 2001).
59. Initially, during the Russian civil war of 1918-21, Muslims of the North Caucasus declared an independent state, the United Mountain Republic. In the course of the civil war, the Mountain Republic was incorporated into Bolshevik Russia by force. Lenin's promise of self-determination to Russia's national minorities, one that was specifically made to the Muslims as well, was shown to have been a tactic for seizing power, not a strategy for building a new state or brave new world. The Mountain Republic was replaced by the Bolsheviks in January 1920 with the Mountain (Gorskaya) Autonomous Republic (GAR) by decree of the Soviet Central Executive Committee on the recommendation of the Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities. Following Dagestan, Kabarda was separated from the GAR on September 21, 1921, and established as an autonomous oblast' (AO). In 1922, the Balkar and Karachaevo-Cherkessia AOs were carved out of the GAR.
60. "Mezhnatsionalnyie konflikty glavnaya ugroza edinstvu," Obozrevatel - Rossiya segodnya: Realnyi shans, http://www.nasledie.ru/ oboz/N21-24_94/013.htm.
61. In addition to the three main Adygei-Abkhazian or Circassian peoples and the Abazins, the Iber-Caucasian linguistic group includes the Chechens, Avars, Lezghins, Dardhins, Ingush, Laks, Tabasarans, Rutuls, Tsakhurs, and Aguls. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide, 148-49.
62. "Cherkess" is a name of Turkish origin for the three groups. "Kabard" is not an ethnic group, but the local geographical designation. The traditional English-language designation is "Circassian." Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 190, 197-98.
63. On this and the obstacles precluding the success of any such Adygei national project, see Yu. M. Kobishchanov, "Muslulmane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musulmane i russkie-muslimane," in Muslulmane izmneyayushcheisya Rossii, ed. Yu. M. Kobishchanov, 61-112 (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2002).
64. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 96.
65. Approximately 90 percent of Russia's Balkars live in the KBR, a slightly lesser concentration in the republic than that of the Kabards, who are almost entirely placed within the KBR. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 201-2.
66. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 72-74;
67. and Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 148.
68. One reliable version of the Balkar and Karachai peoples' origins holds that they lie in the Alan state (Alania is the Ossetians' preferred title for the Republic of North Ossetia), which emerged and expanded in the North Caucasus from the fifth and sixth centuries to the thirteenth century and was made up of two basic ethnocultural components: the Karachai-Balkar and Oset-Digor. Laipanov, "Islam v istorii i samosoznanii karachaevskogo naroda," 174.
69. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 201-4.
70. "V KBR pominayut zhertv depotatsii Balkarskogo naroda," Islam.ru (March 9, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/press/rus/2005-03-09/ #7540.
71. Rajan Menon, "Russia's Quagmire: On Ending the Standoff in Chechnya," Boston Review, Summer 2004, http://www.bostonreview.net/.
72. Aleksandr Tsipko, "The Weaknesses and Shortcomings of Putin's State Reforms," Jamestown Foundation Prism 6, no. 10, (October 2000).
73. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 159, 202.
74. Liz Fuller, "Balkars Launch New Campaign for Their Own Republic," RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly 5, no. 22 (June 3, 2005).
75. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 195.
76. There is a small community of Christian Kabards in Mozdok and the vicinity in North Ossetia. Bennigsen and Wimbush, Muslims of the Soviet Empire, 199.
77. The urban population's percentage of the overall population peaked in the KBR in 1992 at 481,000 (61.4 percent) and declined steadily to 452,400 by 2000 (57.2 percent), while the overall population increased during the same period from 784,000 in 1992 to 791,600 in 2000. According to the October 2002 census results, the urban population's share of the overall KBR population fell to 56.6 percent. For the 2002 census results for KBR, see "Chislennost naseleniya KBR," Elbrusoid.ru, http://www.elbrusoid.ru/content/kbr/p2688.shtml.
78. For previous years, see "Demografiya," Elbrusoid.ru, http://www.elbrusoid.ru/content/kbr/p524.shtml.
79. Andreas Kappeler and Svetlana Chervonnaya, "Musulmanskie narody Rossii: istoricheskoe vvedenie," in Islam v Evrazaii, ed. Iordan, Kuzeev, and Chervonnaya, 98-119.
80. The Russia-KBR power-sharing treaty can be found in M. N. Gobuglo, Federalizm vlasti i vlasti federalizma (Moscow: IntelTekh, 1997), 252-58.
81. Nikolai Petrov, "Razdelennyi suverenitet po-rossiiski: vzaimootnosheniya Moskvy i regionov," in Poiski alternative dlya Gruzii i Abkhazii, ed. B. Koppiters, D. Darchiashvili, and N. Akaba, 133-71 (Moscow: Ves Mir, 1999).
82. Altogether, the KBR's treaty enumerated twenty-three rights under exclusive KBR jurisdiction, whereas Kazan's treaty gave it only fifteen, and Bashkiria's treaty gave Ufa only eighteen. Although Tatarstan was referred to in its treaty as "a state united with the Russian Federation" that conducted its own international affairs, the KBR was defined as "a state in the Russian Federation" without the right to conduct international affairs. Gobuglo, Federalizm vlasti i vlasti federalizma, 247-49, 253-55, 260-61.
83. Gobuglo, Federalizm vlasti i vlasti federalizma, 254.
84. Hunter, Islam in Russia, 272
85. and Petrov, "Razdelennyi suverenitet po-rossiiski: vzaimootnosheniya Moskvy i regionov," 137.
86. In a survey of Russian experts, the KBR was ranked eighty-fifth of eighty-eight Russian regions (Chechnya not included in the survey) on its overall level of democracy in the period from 1991 to 2001. For information about the different levels of democratization in the national republics and the nonnational "Russian" regions, see Nikolai Petrov's detailed analysis in "Po rezul'tatam issedovanii Permskaya Oblast' okazalas' demokratichnee Moskvy i Sankt Peterburga," Regions.ru (October 16, 2002), http://www.regions.ru/.
87. In an index including various indicators of electoral democracy from 1999-2002, it ranked last of eighty-eight regions (Chechnya again not included). From an unpublished manuscript by Nikolai Petrov, "Democracy in Russia's Regions" in The White Book of Russian Democracy, ed. Michael McFaul and Nikolai Petrov (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, 2004).
88. In January 2001, the Moscow-based Glasnost Defense Fund rated the KBR eighty-second out of eighty-seven regions. Chechnya and Ingushetiya were excluded from the study. RFE/RL Russian Federation Report 3, no. 5 (January 31, 2001).
89. Kokov was and remains the republic's human rights ombudsman, heading its Human Rights Committee. Lyudmilla Maratova, "Kabardino-Balkariya President Continues to Influence Judicial System," EastWest Institute Russian Regional Report 7, no. 26 (September 3, 2003).
90. "Mezhnatsionalnyie konflikty glavnaya ugroza edinstvu."
91. Sergei Markedonov, "Kabardino-Balkariya kak model dlya sborki RF," Kavkaz-Forum - Rekonstruktsiya Chechni (June 14, 2005), http://www.kavkaz-forum.ru/politics/10704.html.
92. Igor Nadeinov, "Syn protiv ottsa," Moskovskie novosti 27 (July 13-29, 2004): 15.
93. Robert Orttung, "Separatism Threatens Kabardino-Balkaria," EastWest Institute Russian Regional Report (October 27, 1996), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/researchpub/rrr/docs/rrr961227.pdf.
94. Liz Fuller, "Balkars Launch New Campaign for Their Own Republic," RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly 5, no. 22 (June 3, 2005).
95. RFE/RL Newsline, no. 225 (November 20, 1996).
96. Fuller, "Balkars Launch New Campaign for Their Own Republic."
97. Igor Rotar, "Chechen Spark, Caucasian Powderkeg," Perspective 10, no. 2, (November-December 1999).
98. "Kabardino-Balkarskaya Respublika: Lider 'Adyge Hase' gotov ko vtoromu sroku," Regions.ru (April 10, 2003), http://www.regions.ru/ newsarticle/news/id/1064080.html.
99. "Kabardino-Balkarskaya Respublika: Chinovnik dolzhen znat' vse tri gosudarstvennykh yazyka," Regions.ru (August 7, 2003), http://www.regions.ru/newsarticle/news/id/1193430.html.
100. "Mezhnatsionalnyie konflikty glavnaya ugroza edinstvu."
101. ITAR-TASS (December 30, 2004).
102. Fatima Tlisova, "Zemlya nevoli," Novaya gazeta 41 (June 9, 2005), http://2005.novayagazeta.ru/nomer/2005/41n/n41n-s27.shtml.
103. In March 2003, Ataman of the Prokhladnyii Cossack community, Mikhail Koncharenko, managed to get his Cossacks to promise to refrain from calls for redrawing the North Caucasus's borders. However, the same Cossacks rejected a proposal to accept status as a "subethnos" of the ethnic Russians. See "Kabardino-Balkarskaya Respublika: Kazaki ne khotyat byt' subetnosom," Regions.ru (March 6, 2003), http://www.regions.ru/newsarticle/news/id/1021026.html.
104. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 96.
105. Chief mufti of the KBR Shafig Pshikhachev cites this as the first appearance of Wahhabist terrorists in the KBR, and the origins of the secret organization of Wahhabist structures for a new Islamist regime in selected cities and villages later on. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 257-58.
106. See Gordon M. Hahn, "The Rise of Russia's Islamist Revolutionary Terrorist Network," unpublished paper available on request from GordonHahnφulbrightweb.org.
107. On the details of the establishment and operation of Basaev's camps, see the declassified version of the top secret U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, "Intelligence Information Report/Swift Knight - Usama Ben Laden's Current and Historical Activities," (October 1998, released October 30, 2004);
108. and Valerii Tishkov, Obshchestvo v vooruzhenom konflikte: Etnografiya chechenskoi voiny (Moscow: Nauka, 2001), 297-303.
109. Basaev himself stressed the ethnic diversity of the terrorists who seized Beslan's School No. 1, noting that "twelve Chechens, two Chechen women, nine Ingush, three Russians, two Arabs, two Ossetians, a Tatar, a Kabard, and a Guran" took part in seizing the hostages. "Abdallakh Shamil: 'Operatsiya Nord-Vest v Beslane,'" Kavkaz-Tsentr (September 17, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/russ/ content/2004/09/17/25985.shtml.
110. Basaev, after a month-long course of medical treatment in Krasnodar Krai, reportedly married a Kuban Cossack woman there. Chechen authorities rejected the report as propaganda. "Separatisty utverzhdayut, chto Basaev zhenilsya," Kavkazskii uzel (February 23, 2005), http://www.kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/news/id/771121.html.
111. See "'Tsentrmuskom' prodolzhaet deistvovat," Kavkaz-Tsentr (May 2, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/russ/content/2005/05/02/ 33401.shtml.
112. For a brief summary, although perhaps slightly exaggerated interpretation of the meeting and the constitutional changes, see Aleksandr Ignatenko, "Vakhkhabitskoe kvazigosudarstvo," Russkii Zhurnal, http://www.russ.ru/publish/96073701, citing the Chechen militants' Web site Kavkaz-Tsentr (September 10, 2002). The author's attempts in September 2005 to find the item cited by Ignatenko at the Chechen militants' Web site Kavkaz-Tsentr produced no results. Ignatenko also refers to an Internet videoclip of the meeting.
113. "Prezident ChRI Sheik Abdul-Khalim. Kto On?" Kavakaz-Tsentr (March 12, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2005/03/12/ 31285.shtml.
114. Ignatenko, "Vakhkabitskoe kvazigosudarstvo." Again, this item was no longer in the site's archive by fall 2005. See also Kavkaz-Tsentr (October 8, 2002).
115. Utro.ru (March 16, 2004), http://www.utro.ru/.
116. In a revealing June 2005 interview with Radio Liberty, Sadulaev claimed that shortly before his death, Maskhadov had reinstated Basaev to the ChRI Shura from which he had resigned shortly after he claimed responsibility for the October 2002 Nord-Ost theatre hostage-taking in central Moscow. "A.-Kh. Sadulaev: 'Obeshaem russkim voinu do pobednogo kontsa'," Otvety Prezidenta ChRI Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev na voprosy korrespondentov radio 'Svoboda,' Kavkaz Tsentr, (July 6, 2005) http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2005/07/06/35833.shtml.
117. For the interview with Ichkeria Republic President Aslan Maskhadov and Chairman of the Shariat Committee of Ichkeria Republic's State Defense Committee Abdul-Khalim (Sadulaev), see "'My perenosim voinu na territoriyu vraga,'" Kavkaz-Tsentr, (August 1, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2004/08/01/24101.shtml.
118. Interview with Maskhadov and Khalim, "'My perenosim voinu na territoriyu vraga.'"
119. Interview with Maskhadov and Khalim, "'My perenosim voinu na territoryu vraga.'"
120. He stated: "I do not think there is a detachment on Chechnya's territory that would ignore my order. In my opinion, there are no such units even on the territories of Ingushetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkariya, and Karachaevo-Cherkessiya. These are not empty words, but reality. All combat detachments on Chechnya's territory and in neighboring republics are subordinated to the Chechen Resistance." From the Information-Analytical Center under the President of ChRI, March 3, 2005, as cited in Chechen Press (March 4, 2005), http://chechenpress.co.uk/index.shtml.
121. Basaev's high profile participation in the ceasefire also casts a strong shadow of doubt over its purpose having been to promote the possibility of peace, because Basaev has always rejected negotiating with the Russians. Thus, there are less benign interpretations of the purpose behind this move. One interpretation made by pro-Russian sources was that it could have been an attempt to give the Islamist network an opportunity to marshall its resources toward preparations for a future wave of guerilla and terrorist operations. Another possible explanation is that Russian forces had moved in on someone or something important to the Chechens, and the latter sought to dissipate thier energies. Indeed, one week after Mashkhadov's ceasefire term had expired, so did he at the hands of Russian forces. In short, there is a question as to whether the Chechens were as interested in talks with the Russians as they were in regaining points lost with the international community at Beslan, especially as no other concrete proposals came with the unilateral ceasfire. "Prezident Mashkhadov priostanovil voinu."
122. Indeed, Maskhadov and Basaev seemed on very friendly terms in a photograph showing the two men seated together published on the Kavkaz-Tsentr Web site along with the ceasfire announcement. See "Prezident Maskhadov priostanovil voinu."
123. "Maskhadov za mir, Putin za voinu," Kavkaz-Tsentr (March 5, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/russ/content/2005/03/05/31101.shtml.
124. The Chechen rebel's Web site reported he was born in 1967. "Prezident ChRI Sheik Abdul-Khalim. Kto On?" Kavakaz-Tsentr, (March 12, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2005/03/12/ 31285.shtml.
125. See also Interfax (March 10, 2005).
126. "V Chechnya poyavilsya preemnik Maskhadova - na saite chechenskih separatistov 'Kavkaz-Tsentr novym liderom boevikov nazval Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev," Ekho Moskvy (March 10, 2005), http://www.echo.msk.ru/ news/_236585.html/.
127. Interview with Maskhadov and Khalim, "'My perenosim voinu na territoriyu vraga.'"
128. Nataliya Lopashenko, director of the Saratov branch of the Center for Transnational Crime and Corruption at American University in Washington, DC, provided this data in a presentation in Togliatti, Samara Oblast in April 2004. Her report was excerpted in Russian Regional Report 9, no. 17 (September 17, 2004).
129. RFE/RL Newsline, (July 24, 2001). However, in 2004, the federal government adopted a new law that put some restrictions on the locations where demonstrations could occur and established the rules for registering planned demonstrations with government bodies.
130. Valerii Kalabugin, "Severnyie kadry ne prizhilis na yuge," Nezavisimaya gazeta (July 2, 2004), 5.
131. The State Council was created as an advisory body composed of the then eighty-nine regions' chief executives as compensation for their loss of seats in the upper house of the Federal Assembly, the Federation Council, after Putin reorganized it.
132. Pavel Isaev, "GosSovet obsudil kontseptsiyu reformy, predlozhennoi kommissiei D. Kozaka," Rossiiskii regionalnyi byulleten 4, no. 20, (November 4, 2002).
133. Igor Nadeinov, "Syn protiv ottsa."
134. See the KBR Web site, Elbrusoid.ru, http://www.elbrusoid.ru/content/kbr/ p20934.shtml.
135. Election results from the Russian Central Election Commission Web site, http://www.cikrf.ru.
136. Hunter, Islam in Russia, 99.
137. A figure of 46 percent of the population living below the poverty line was cited in 2001. See Lyudmilla Maratova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Prepares to Re-elect Unpopular President," EastWest Institute Russian Regional Report 6, no. 34 (October 3, 2001).
138. RFE/RL Russian Federation Report 2, no. 9 (March 7, 2001).
139. Hunter, Islam in Russia, 100-1.
140. Lyudmila Maratova, "Kokov Lacks Ideas on Fixing Kabardino-Balkaria Economy," EastWest Institute Russian Regional Report 7, no. 15 (April 24, 2002).
141. Maratova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Prepares to Re-elect Unpopular President."
142. Lyudmila Maratova, "Kokov Lacks Ideas on Fixing Kabardino-Balkariya Economy."
143. Kabardino-Balkarskaya pravda, November 1, 2000,
144. cited in Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 258-59.
145. Valerii Kokov, "Arifmetika sotsialnogo spokoistviya," Nezavisimaya gazeta (February 15, 2001), 3.
146. Kokov, "Arifmetika sotsialnogo spokoistviya."
147. On the film see Yurii Akbashev, "Dokumentalnyi film vyzvalvozmushcheniye," Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 55 (October 27, 2000), http://www.iwpr. net/index.pl?archive/cau/cau_200010_55_04_rus.txt.
148. For information on the protests, see Zarina Kanukova, "Otvet Adygeya," IWPR Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 57 (November 11, 2000), http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/cau/ cau_2000_11_57_01_rus.txt.
149. Anna Matveeva, The North Caucasus: Russia's Fragile Borderland (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1999), 37.
150. The other new members were: Bashkortostan President Rakhimov, Jewish Autonomous Oblast head Nikolai Volkov, Karelia Republic head Sergei Katanandov, Yaroslavl Governor Anatolii Lisitsyn, Omsk Governor Leonid Polezhaev, and Khanty-Mansii Autonomous Okrug Governor Aleksandr Filipenko. RFE/RL, Newsline 5, no. 50, (March 13, 2001).
151. The delegation to the OIC, at which Putin proposed Russia's joining the organization under observer status, also included the presidents of Chechnya, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan as well as Muslim officials in the federal government. RFE/RL, Newsline, October 17, 2003.
152. For example, in January 2002, before the rise of the combat jamaat in the KBR, Kokov was ranked sixth among Russia's eighty-nine regional leaders. RFE/RL, Russian Federation Report 4, no. 13 (April 10, 2002).
153. Shamil Basayev vystupil, chto delaetsya," Kommersant Daily, (July 5, 2004), 4.
154. "DUM Kabardino-Balkarii ishet puti k dialogu s oppozitsionnymi imamami," Islam.ru (December 28, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/press/ rus/2004-12-28/#6932.
155. The Spiritual Center is replete with a mosque, a fifteen-hundred - seat auditorium, a wedding hall, conference hall, library, book preservation laboratory, and printing press. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'-mane," 255.
156. "DUM Kabardino-Balkarii ishet puti k dialogu s oppozitsionnymi imamami," Islam.ru (December 28, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/press/ rus/2004-12-28/#6932.
157. "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen," Kavkaz-tsentr (March 24, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/ 2005/03/24/31762.shtml.
158. The imams of the KChR already had been requesting this for six months. Milrad Fatullaev, "Muftiyaty vstayut na kazennoe dovolstvie," Nezavisimaya gazeta (January 31, 2005), http://www.ng.ru/regions/ 2005-01-31/9_caucasus.html;
159. and "Imamy 3 respublik Severnogo Kavkaza prosyat vlasti vzyat'ikh na soderzhanie," Islam.ru (January 31, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/.
160. Islam.ru (February 9, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/press/rus/2005-02-09/ #7266
161. and "Selskie imamy KBR nauchatsya rabotat s prikhozhanami mechetei," Islam.ru (February 16, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/press/ rus/2005-02-16/#7342.
162. "Kabardino-Balkarskaya Respublika: V Prokhladnenskoi shkole nacali prepodavat' 'Osnovy pravoslavnoi kultury,'" Regions.ru (September 26, 2003), http://www.regions.ru.
163. "Shkolniki Kabardino-Balkarii budet izuchat'Islam," Islam.ru (August 23, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/;
164. and "Kabardino-Balkarskaya Respublika: Pravoslavnaya tserkov' odobrila vvedenie v shkolnuyu programmu novogo predmeta," Regions.ru (August 18, 2005), http://www.regions.ru/.
165. Regions.ru, October 11, 2004
166. cited in "KBR: veryushchie i siloviki poka govoryat na raznykh yaykakh," Islam.ru (October 11, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/ and in the author's archive.
167. "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen."
168. Ibid.
169. Ibid.
170. Fatullaev, "Muftiyaty vstayut na kazennoe dovolstvie";
171. and "Imamy 3 respublik Severnogo Kavkaza prosyat vlasti vzyat'ikh na soderzhanie," Islam.ru (January 3, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/.
172. See "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen."
173. For his follow-up interview see "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen (prodolzhenie)," Kavkaz-tsentr (March 25, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/russ/content/2005/03/25/ 31816.shtml.
174. See his comment in Fatima Tlisova, "Islamist Group Destroyed in Kabardino-Balkariya," IWPR Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 272, (February 3, 2005).
175. It read in part: "We want to declare that you, 'Yarmuk,' have nothing at all to do with Islam and the republic's Muslims.... You act according to your own personal motives and do not consider the opinions of the Islamic population. Thus your words are not valid among Muslims. For us, you are simply bandits. Last night, four brave Muslims who were fighting against the spread of narcotics were murdered. With that you committed a grave sin - killing of a Muslim for the sake of personal gain.... We know who you are and will look for you until the end of your days." Charles Gurin, "Authorities Suspect Islamists Murdered Drug Agents in Kabardino-Balkaria," Eurasia Daily Monitor 1, no. 149 (December 17, 2004), http://www.jamestownfoundation.org/.
176. Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 259.
177. Irina L. Babich, "Ideologicheskii fundament vozrozhdeniya obychnogo i musulmanskogo prava v Kabardino-Balkarii," IslaminKBR.ru, http://www.islaminkbr.com/kbr/in.php?mode=004.
178. See the interview with Igor Dobaev, "Pro vakhkhabitov i ne tolko," Religare.ru (December 23, 2004), http://www.religare.ru/.
179. Ruslan Odigov was detained by Russian security forces in 2000, accused of supporting the Chechen rebellion, and physically abused for two weeks before being released. He then absconded to Afghanistan where, after initially being distrusted by the Taliban, he was captured by the Northern Alliance, although he insists he was not involved in fighting. Back in the KBR after Guantanamo, Odigov claimed he and other supporters of Mukozhev were on the authorities' extremist list. RFE/RL, Newsline 7, no. 60 (March 28, 2003);
180. RFE/RL, Russian Federation Report 4, no. 14 (April 17, 2002);
181. and "Russia's 'Taliban' Faces Uneasy Future after Guantanamo Torment," AFP (August 1, 2004).
182. Fatima Tlisova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Fears Spread of Terror," IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 255 (September 29, 2004).
183. Alexander Raskin and Sergei Kuklev, "Chechnya Metastasis," Newsweek Russia, no. 1 (January 14, 2005).
184. "V MVD KBR nedoumevayut, pochemu musul'mane prodolzhayut molit'sya u zakrytoi mecheti," Islam.ru (April 27, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/ press/rus/2005-04-27/#8075;
185. and Raskin and Kuklev, "Chechnya Metastasis."
186. The order also categorically banned the organization of study for school and preschool children in mosques, appointed an assistant (Khasan Tutovich Khalishov) to the head imam of the city of Chegem to be responsible for enforcing the new regime, and assigned the monitoring of the mosque to the Chegem city administration deputy head. When Chegem's Muslims petitioned the city's prosecutor, he ruled the city administration's order a violation of the Russian constitution. However, the city issued a "new" order, which differed from the original only in that it reduced the working hours of the mosque by half. R. B. Nakhushev, "O pravovom polozhenii musul'man v Kabardino-Balkarii," IslaminKBR.ru (April 5, 2005), http://www. islaminkbr.com/kbr/in.php?mode=002.
187. Nakhushev, "O pravovom polozhenii musul'man v Kabardino-Balkarii."
188. NTV's Namedni Program and Gazeta, July 19, 2004, cited in "Martial Law Declared in Kabardino-Balkaria," Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor 1, no. 63 (July 30, 2004).
189. Tlisova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Fears Spread of Terror."
190. See "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen."
191. Tlisova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Fears Spread of Terror."
192. For the results of the research conducted by scholars from the KBR government's Institute of Humanitarian Studies and the Russian Academy of Science's Kabardino-Balkaria Science Center and Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, see Nakhushev, "O pravovom polozhenii musul'man v Kabardino-Balkarii."
193. This article was based on another one written by one of the leaders of the field expedition, see Valerii Kazharov, "Etnograficheskaya ekspeditsiya poproblemam islama v KBR," Gazeta Yuga (June 5, 2003).
194. Musa, described as a spokesman for the "Initiative Group of Muslims of the KBR" (Initsiativnaya gruppa musulman KBR or IGM KBR) and a KBR resident, is likely associated with or even a member of the Yarmuk Jamaat, because he was laying out what had become a central point of Yarmuk statements at the time - that jihad had become obligatory for all Muslims in the KBR and the North Caucasus. See "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen."
195. Raskin and Kuklev, "Chechnya Metastasis."
196. By November 2000, KBR Chief Prosecutor Anatolii Tkhagapsoev asserted there were 382 militant Wahhabis in the KBR, and 167 in Nalchik. For August 2000 information about KBR DUM Chairman Pshikhachev's August 2000 warning and the Council of Muftis of Russia's June 2000 warning regarding the presence of militant Wahhabism in the republic, see, respectively, "Vakhkhabizm - eto otritsanie narodnykh obychaev. Otvet mufti KBR Shafiga Pshikhacheva na zayavlenie predstavitelei 'musulmanksikh dzhamaatov,'" Severnyi Kavkaz 6, no. 512 (February 2001);
197. and Kobishchanov, "Muslul'mane Rossii, korennye rossiiskie musul'mane i russkie-musli'mane," 257-59.
198. Timur Samedov, "Nad Nalchikom navisla 'oranzhevaya revolyutsiya," Kommersant Daily (August 20, 2004), 3.
199. Federal prosecutors' investigation into the March 2001 car bomb explosions in Mineralnye Vody, Yessentuki, and the KChR and the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk that helped spark the second Chechen war led to the arrests of eleven alleged Islamic militants and reportedly uncovered a radical Islamist network that the federal prosecutor-general's office stated was planning armed seizures of power in both republics. Timofei Borisov, "Pervorot gotovili amiry," Rossiiskaya gazeta (August 18, 2001), 1;
200. and RFE/RL, Newsline 5, no. 156 (August 17, 2001). Newspapers reported that senior security officials in the republics, however, had claimed they had no idea to what the statement referred.
201. See Izvestiya and Nezavisimaya gazeta on August 17, 2001,
202. cited in RFE/RL, Newsline 5, no. 156 (August 17, 2001).
203. See Aleksandra Larintseva, Timur Samedov, and Olga Allenova, "Koltso kavkazskoi natsionalnosti," Kommersant-Vlast (September 29-October 5, 2003), 20;
204. Valerii Khatazhukov, "Kabardino-Balkariya Crackdown on Islamists," IWPR's Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 199 (August 2003);
205. and Samedov, "Nad Nalchikom navisla 'oranzhevaya revolyutsiya." Basaev's presence was revealed to police and security officers during testimony by Zarema Mahadzieva, a Chechen woman who had attempted to blow herself up in Moscow.
206. Russkiy kurier, August 2003, cited in "Martial Law Declared in Kabardino-Balkaria."
207. In a November 2004 interview, Basaev himself claimed that he is constantly on the move and mentioned stays in Kabardino-Balkariya. RFE/ RL, Caucasus Report (November 5, 2004).
208. See the interview with FSB Lieutenant General Ivan Mironov in Rossiiskaya Gazeta (September 10, 2002).
209. Tlisova, "Islamist Group Destroyed in Kabardino-Balkariya."
210. According to Valery Kanukov, chief prosecutor in the Elbrus district, Atayev was one of the best students at Kendelen's school, before being accepted to Kabardino-Balkaria University. Tlisova, "Islamist Group Destroyed in Kabardino-Balkariya."
211. Born in 1974, Ataev reportedly distinguished himself in Gelayev's eyes through his exceptional organizational abilities and good physical condition. Timur Samedov, "Podozrevaemyie iz 'Yarmuka'," Kommersant Daily (December 15, 2004), 4;
212. Tlisova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Fears Spread of Terror,"
213. Ksenya Solyanskaya, "Oni vozneslis na nebo," Gazeta.ru (January 28, 2005), http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/01/28/oa_146501.shtml;
214. and RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 21 (February 2, 2005).
215. Atayev's telephone number was recorded on the SIM card of one of two mobile telephones discovered in the house in Baksan where Basaev had been hiding and on a mobile telephone found at the scene of the fighting near Chegem. It maintained a link to him through an inhabitant of a Nalchik suburban settlement of Khasan. Samedov, "Podozrevaemye iz 'Yarmuka.'"
216. Kavkas-Tsentr (March 10, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/;
217. and "Dzhamaat 'Yarmuk': Prinyat plan boevykh operatsii v KBR na 2005 g.," Kavkaz-Tsentr (March 12, 2005), http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/russ/ content/2005/03/12/31292.shtml.
218. Timur Samedov, "Prishol, uvidel, i ushol," Kommersant Daily (August 20, 2004), 1 and 6;
219. ITAR-TASS (August 19, 2004);
220. Marina Chernysheva, "Militants Suspected of Killing Tourists Slain in Kabardino-Balkaria," ITAR-TASS (August 20, 2004);
221. Vadim Rechkalov, "Eti mestnyie rebyaty, no yavno pobyvali v Chechne," Izvestiya (August 20, 2004);
222. and Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 20, 2004,
223. cited in RFE/RL, Newsline 8, no. 159 (August 20, 2004).
224. Indeed, after a January 2005 operation that ended in killing Ataev (a Balkar), his family, and five other members of the jamaat, an unnamed KBR official involved in planning the raid said that there was a thirty-six-hour delay in launching the operation because the militants were Balkars, and the republic's leadership feared their deaths would have a negative effect on interethnic relations in the KBR. Nezavisimaya gazeta, January 28, 2005,
225. cited in RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 18 (January 28, 2005).
226. Two other insurgents killed during the first major skirmish with Yarmuk fighters near Chegem in summer 2004 were Balkars from Kendelen. Rossiiskaya gazeta (December 16, 2004).
227. However, the insurgency network in Kabardino-Balkaria, out of which Yarmuk apparently emerged, was originally established by two Kabard brothers who first arranged for Basaev to visit the KBR and were soon killed. Andrei Smirnov, "Who Is Behind Yarmuk Jamaat: Balkars or Kabardins?" Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor 2, no. 23 (February 2, 2005).
228. Timur Samedov, "Podozrevaemyie iz 'Yarmuka,'" Kommersant (December 15, 2004): 4;
229. Fatima Tlisova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Fears Spread of Terror," IWPR'S Caucasus Reporting Service, no. 255 (September 29, 2004);
230. Ksenya Solyanskaya, "Oni vozneslis na nebo," Gazeta.ru (January 28, 2005), http://www.gazeta.ru/2005/01/28/oa_146501.shtml;
231. and RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 21 (February 2, 2005).
232. Yarmuk recently published a letter on December 19, 2004, from a group of Kabards supporting its activities. Also, Yarmuk praised Atayev's ethnic Russian wife, Olesya, as a martyr for fighting Russian forces to the death during the siege in which her husband was killed. Andrei Smirnov, "Who Is Behind Yarmuk Jamaat: Balkars or Kabardins?" Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor 2, no. 23 (February 2, 2005).
233. Yarmuk claims that Russian security forces posted a letter supposedly from Yarmuk claiming it was planning a Beslan-style siege of a Kabard school. Smirnov, "Who Is Behind Yarmuk Jamaat: Balkars or Kabardins?"
234. Dzhamaat 'Yarmuk': Prinyat plan boevykh operatsii v KBR na 2005g," Kavkaz-Tsentr (March 12, 2005), http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/russ/content/ 2005/03/12/31292.shtml.
235. KBR MVD officials also noted that two of those killed were would-be shakhidki female martyrs being trained to conduct suicide bombings, one of them a resident of the KChR. Solyanskaya, "Oni vozneslis na nebo."
236. Jeremy Page, "Rebel Attacks Spread from Chechnya," Times (UK) (January 28, 2005).
237. Andrew McGregor, "The Jamaat Movement in Kabardino-Balkaria," Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor 3, no. 7 (April 7, 2005).
238. See Anonymous, Imperial Hubris (Dulles, VA: Brassey's, 2004);
239. and Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror (New York: Random House, 2003), 22-23.
240. Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen."
241. Ibid.
242. Musa states: "According to Shari'ah, groups of mujahadin, depending on the scale and type of scheduled operations planned, should coordinate their actions and notify one another about them whenever possible. If individual combat actions are carried out, coordination is not obligatory. If, however, carrying out a medium-scale operation requires the involvement of a group of mujahadin, they should seek advice from the group's amir, who makes the decision and acts according to the circumstances. Carrying out major operations, which require the participation of two or more groups, is impossible without coordination of actions. Shari'ah envisages the creation of an advisory body headed by one amir and two of his naibs. The general assembly of the coordination council (Shura) with the participation of the amirs of the groups or their naibs will be held as needed. We are not murderers or bandits. Therefore, the actions of each mujahadin should meet the requirement of Islamic law, Shari'ah. To ensure this, and to resolve controversial issues that might arise, a Shari'ah oversight body should be created under the Coordination Council (Shura) according to the kada'u-d-darura principle (court as needed, or military tribunal)." See "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen (prodolzhenie)."
243. Members of Yarmuk already had been charged with the July 2004 murder of tourists in Stavropol Krai. Samedov, "Prishol, uvidel, i ushol," ITAR-TASS (August 19, 2004);
244. and Chernysheva, "Militants Suspected of Killing Tourists Slain in Kabardino-Balkaria."
245. Two militants and two members of the security forces were killed and four police were wounded. One report had it that the band had been targeting the siloviki, in this case the KBR's MVD chief Lieutenant General Khachim Shogenov, whose dacha is not far from the scene of the battle. Other police sources said that ten kilograms of TNT found in the group's car may have been intended for a terrorist act at Nalchik airport. Samedov, "Prishol, uvidel, i ushol," ITAR-TASS (August 19, 2004);
246. Chernysheva, "Militants Suspected of Killing Tourists Slain in Kabardino-Balkaria," ITAR-TASS (August 20, 2004);
247. Rechkalov, "Eti mestnyie rebyaty, no yavno pobyvali v Chechne";
248. and Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 20, 2004,
249. cited in RFE/RL, Newsline 8, no. 159 (August 20, 2004).
250. Roman Kiloyev, "'Day of Ingushetia' for Kabardino-Balkaria," Kavkaz-Tsentr (August 22, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/.
251. The statement was made in clearly Islamist terms: "We may die but others will follow. The Muslims of the Caucasus will live on. Finally, we pay homage to God, the Lord of the worlds. We ask for His help and pray for His forgiveness. God is Great!" It also denied KBR police allegations that elements from "Yarmuk" were responsible for the murder of tourists in Stavropol. "Kabardino-Balkarskii Jamaat Obyavlyaet Jihad," Kavkaz-Tsentr (August 23, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/.
252. The population was reportedly on edge in fear of another terrorist act and kinder-gartens, schools, and colleges were frequently closed in response to that fear. Parents stopped sending their children to school. Marianna Kalmykova, a journalist and mother in Nalchik who kept her son away from school no. 2 for several days, stated: "(E)verybody is waiting for a terrorist attack," she said. Attendance was so low because of fears of an attack that there were no classes for days. Tlisova, "Kabardino-Balkariya Fears Spread of Terror."
253. "Nal'chik. Dzhamaaty sozdayutsya uzhe i v mestakh lisheniya svobody," Regions.ru (September 15, 2004), http://www.regions.ru/.
254. "Administratsiya Nal'chika razreshaet lish' odnoi mecehti goroda," Islam.ru (September 15, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/.
255. "Kabardino-Balkariya: vlasti ugrozhayut 'Beslanom,' musul' mane zhaluyutsya na pritesneniya," Islam.ru (September 21, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/.
256. "Deistviya silovikov na Severnom Kavkaze vyzyvayut ozabochennost' musul'-man," Islam.ru (October 18, 2004), http://www.islam.ru/ and the author's archive.
257. "Zhurnalisty zayavlyayut o narushenii prav cheloveka," Islam.ru (February 24, 2005), http://www.islam.ru/press/rus/2005-02-24/#7417.
258. ITAR-TASS (December 30, 2004).
259. ITAR-TASS, December 16, 2004, as cited in Gurin, "Authorities Suspect Islamists Murdered Drug Agents in Kabardino-Balkaria."
260. RFE/RL, Newsline 8, no. 190 (October 6, 2004).
261. "Napadenie na Upravlenie Narkontrolya KBR sovershila, po versii sledstviya, gruppa 'Yarmuk,'" Izvestiya (December 14, 2005), http://www.izvestia.ru/conflict/article833264
262. and Oleg Fochkin and Lina Panchenko, "Rasstrel s dalnyrn pritselom," Moskovskiy Komsomolets (December 15, 2004): 1-2.
263. In the attack on the latter, MVD Colonel Mukhtar Altuyev was seriously wounded but survived. However, his sixteen-year-old son was killed in the attack. Timur Samedov, "Vakhkhabity otomstili svoemu tyuremshchiku, Kommersant Daily (December 9, 2004): 6.
264. Gurin, "Authorities Suspect Islamists Murdered Drug Agents in Kabardino-Balkaria." Another source claimed thirty-six machine guns, one hundred thirty-six pistols, and a "large quantity of ammunition" for these was stolen. "Napadenie na Upravlenie Narkontrolya KBR sovershila, po versii sledstviya, gruppa 'Yarmuk.'"
265. See also RFE/RL, Newsline (December 15-16, 2004).
266. In a message posted on the Chechen separatist Web site Daymohk.info on December 14, Yarmuk claimed responsibility for the attack and claimed that, in addition to weapons, it came away with sensitive intelligence information and the addresses and hideouts of informers from among the drug addicts. "Kabardino-Balkarskii Dzhamaat Yarmuk provyol spetsoperatsiyu v Nalchike," Daymohk.info (December 15, 2005), http://www.daymohk.info/cgi-bin/archieve/archieve.cgi?choice=15200412.
267. In a later Web site posting, a Yarmuk representative devoted considerable attention to warning potential recruits and supporters to be wary of provocateurs and informants from the Russian security services while organizing guerilla cells and operations. Kavkaz-Tsentr (December 16, 2004), http://www.kavkazcenter.com/ and "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen (prodolzhenie)." This also may have been connected to the surrender to the authorities in November of four Yarmuk activists. ITAR-TASS (December 15, 2004).
268. It was also reported that guards opened the door casually at the sound of a familiar voice. Fochkin and Panchenko, "Chuzhie sredi svoikh," Moskovskiy Komsomolets (December 16, 2004): 5;
269. and Gurin, "Authorities Suspect Islamists Murdered Drug Agents in Kabardino-Balkaria."
270. "Yarmuk Declares Jihad," Chechnya Weekly 6, no. 2 (January 13, 2005), http://www.jamestown.org/.
271. Some controversy arose as to whether Atayev's daughter was killed, whether he had a son, and whether he was killed in the siege. See Tlisova, "Islamist Group Destroyed in Kabardino-Balkariya"; Interfax, January 27, 2005,
272. cited in RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 18 (January 28, 2005);
273. Page, "Rebel Attacks Spread from Chechnya"; and RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 16 (January 26, 2005).
274. The site also reported that five Russian troops were killed and ten wounded in the first four hours of the seige. "Dzhamaat 'Yarmuk': 'My prinimaem boi!'" Kavkaz-Tsentr (January 26, 2005), http://www. kavkazcenter.net/russ/content/2005/01/26/29537.shtml. For Yarmuk's two subsequent warnings that jihad was now obligatory for all Muslims in the KBR and North Caucasus,
275. see "Dzhikhad v Kabardino-Balkarii prodolzhitsya," Kavkas-Tsentr (February 2, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/;
276. RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 21 (February 2, 2005);
277. and "Dzhikhad dlya musulman Kabardino-Balkarii obyazatelen."
278. Kavkas-Tsentr (March 10, 2005), http://www.kavkazcenter.net/.
279. "Dzhikhad v Kabardino-Balkarii prodolzhitsya" and RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 21 (February 2, 2005).
280. "Dzhamaat 'Yarmuk': Prinyat plan boevykh operatsii v KBR na 2005 g.," Kavkaz-Tsentr (March 12, 2005), http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/ russ/content/2005/03/12/31292.shtml
281. and "Dvum boevikam, zaderzhannym, v Nalchike, predyavleny obvineniya" (May 5, 2005), http://www.rian.ru/defense_safety/ investigations/20050505/39936220.html
282. However, Putin also rebuked Nurgaliev for referring to the militants by their preferred designation of "jamaat." RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 34 (February 22, 2005). Muslim leaders and others have cautioned that this term simply means "community" and should not become a synonym for "militant group." Putin's political correctness in rhetoric here, however, cannot compensate for his heavy-handed policies.
283. Vesti newscast, RTR TV (March 16, 2005) and Channel One TV, Moscow (March 16, 2005). In a later report, ITAR-TASS quoted the press service: "On 15 March, the KBR MVD reported that the cache found in this operation included ninety-two detonators, ninety-two fuses for VOG-25P fragmentation rounds, one hundred seventy-one electronic explosive devices based on Casio watches using Krona batteries, two bags of electric fuses, forty-one TNT blocks, over seven hundred cartridges, and a bomb making lab was found." ITAR-TASS (March 16, 2004).
284. "Grazhdanskuyu oboronu Kabardino-Balkaria perevedut v rezhim voennoro vremeni;" Kavkaz-tsentr (April 9, 2005), http://www. kavkazcenter.net/russ/content/2005/04/09/32515.shtml.
285. "'Yarmuk' vnov' obezglavlen," Izvestiya (April 29, 2005), http://www.izvestia.ru/conflict/articlel703491
286. and "V Nalchike ubit lider bandy 'Yarmuk' i eshyo boevika," Regions.ru (April 29, 2005),
287. Yelena Denisova, "Prikonchennyi dzhamaat," Smi.ru (April 29, 2005), http://www.smi.ru/05/04/29/3516327.html.
288. "Dvum boevikam, zaderzhannym v Nalchike, predyavleny obvineniya" (May 5, 2005), http://www.rian.ru/defense_safety/ investigations/20050505/39936220.html.
289. See also Yelena Denisova, "Prikonchennyi dzhamaat," Smi.ru, April 29, 2005, http://www.smi.ru/05/04/29/3516327.html;
290. and RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 82 (May 2, 2005).
291. Regnum.ru cited in "Za chtenie Korana studentok-musulmanok v militsii zastavili zadirat' yubki," Islam.ru, April 20, 2005, http://www.islam.ru/press/rus/2005-0420/#7985. The Chechen militants' Web site Kavkaz-Tsentr did not fail to report this as well.
292. See "Militsiya v Nalchike zastablyala musulmanok zadirat' yubki v otmestku za chtenie Korana," Kavkaz-Tsentr, April 21, 2005, http://www.kavkazcenter.net/russ/content/2005/04/21/33024.shtml.
293. Akhmat Shavayev, "V KBR styanuty rossiiskie okkupanty: Idut repressii protiv balkartsev," Chechen Press, March 12, 2005, http://chechenpress.co.uk/news/2005/03/12/08.shtml.
294. Shavayev, "V KBR styanuty rossiiskie okkupanty: Idut repressii protiv balkartsev."
295. On May 24, the KBR Supreme Court dismissed Zokaev's brief that the municipal reform violated the Russian constitution. On May 23, the Nalchik City Court satisfied a request by the KBR prosecutor to declare as illegal and ban holding a planned referendum in which the residents of Khasanya would have voted to approve or disapprove the village's incorporation into Nalchik. Fuller, "Balkars Launch New Campaign for Their Own Republic."
296. Mariya Bondarenko, "Balkartsy zadumali otdelyatsya," Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 30, 2005, http://www.ng.ru/politics/2005-05-30/ 1_balkaria.html;
297. and RFE/RL, Newsline 9, no. 102 (May 31, 2005).
298. Tlisova, "Zemlya nevoli."
299. Jean-Christophe Peuch, "North Caucasus Republics Enter Circle of Violence," RFE/RL, February 23, 2005, http://www.rferl.org/ featuresarticle/2005/02/02lf2f06-0c2e-4lcb-bele-2fe3d61e505d.html.
300. See Abdu Rrakhman, "Vnov poteri sredi nezakonnykh bandformirovanii v Kabardino-Balkarii," Samagat.com, July 21, 2005, http://www.camagat. com/sitebiz/arhiv/2005/07/07.21/20%20unechtojeni%202%20bandita.htm/. For a similar report which emphasizes the Balkar factor,
301. see "V Kabardino-Balkarii prokhodit krupnaya tefforistich-eskaya operatsiya po ustrasheniyu Balkarskogo naroda," Samagat.com, July 30, 2005, http://www.camgat.com/sitebiz/arhiv/2005/07/07.03/ terrer_v_kb.htm/.
302. Jean-Christophe Peuch, "North Caucasus Republics Enter Circle of Violence," RFE/RL (February 23, 2005), http://www.rferl.org/ featuresarticle/2005/02/021f2f060c2e-4lcb-be1e-2fe3d61e505d.html.
303. See Gurin, "Authorities Suspect Islamists Murdered Drug Agents in Kabardino-Balkaria," In other reports, police have been quoted as saying they have information that 437 residents of the KBR are "adherents of radical Islam."
304. See "V MVD KBR nedownevayut, pochemu musul'mane prodolzhayut molit'sya u zakrytoi mecheti." In September 2004, senior assistant to Nalchik's chief prosecutor reported that the KBR MVD's database listed only 389 participants in "illegal armed formations," including 71 Nal'chik residents. "Nal'chik. Dzhamaaty sozdayusya uzhe i v mestakh lisheniya svobody," Regions.ru, September 15, 2004,http://www.regions.ru/.