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Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

THE NORTH CAUCASUS INSURGENCY: 

DEAD OR ALIVE?

Emil Aslan Souleimanov

February 2017

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

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copyrighted.
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ISBN 1-58487-748-0
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CONTENTS

Foreword.......................................................................ix 

Preface ...........................................................................xi

Endnotes - Preface.......................................................xx 

About the Author.....................................................xxiii 

Summary....................................................................xxv 

The North Caucasus Insurgency: 

 Dead or Alive? .............................................................1

 I. Introducing the North Caucasus...........................9 

 II. Chechnya 2000–2010: A Model 

 Counterinsurgency?............................................35 

 III. Counterinsurgency.............................................47 

 IV. Conclusion...........................................................71

Endnotes.......................................................................77

ix

FOREWORD

Violence in the North Caucasus, a multi-ethnic region on Europe’s easternmost edge, has been going on 

almost continuously since 1994, becoming a hallmark 

of post-Soviet Russia. Back then, just 3 years after the 

dissolution of the Soviet Union and 5 years after the 

Soviet military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, armed 

conflict in the nation’s southwestern periphery broke 

out following the Russian Army’s incursion into the 

breakaway republic of Chechnya. Within less than a 

decade, what began as a local ethno-separatist rebellion effectively morphed into an Islamist insurgency, 

spreading in the early-2000s from Chechnya to most of 

the Muslim-majority region. Moreover, even though 

the Russian authorities declared in 2009 the ultimate 

end of the counterterrorist operation, jihadist groups 

have still been underway in the North Caucasus. 

Against the background of impressive research on 

the political violence in the region, this monograph 

seeks to carefully evaluate the current situation and 

the prospects of the North Caucasus insurgency. To 

that end, it reviews the fundamental causes and the 

most-recent trends, both endogenous and exogenous, 

relating to the local insurgency. It explains in great 

detail the factors behind the unprecedented weakening of the local insurgency. At the same time, this 

monograph unveils the important shortcomings of 

these factors, pointing to the viability of the North 
x

Caucasus insurgency and predicting that in the short 

and medium term, locally operating jihadist groups 

will remain a factor of regional and Russian politics. 

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press
xi

PREFACE

December 11, 2014, marked the 20th anniversary 

of Russia’s first war in Chechnya. That war ended in 

a dramatic and decisive defeat for Russia.1 Presently, 

fighting has died down in Chechnya, though it is still 

vulnerable to attacks, as we saw in late-2014.2 However, more importantly, the conflict has spread to 

embrace virtually all of the North Caucasus, as Moscow fights a self-proclaimed jihadi organization, the 

Caucasus Emirate (CE). In other words, the present 

insurgency, and Russia’s counterinsurgency, has gone 

on unabated for 20 years and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. In this respect, the campaign in 

the North Caucasus bears considerable resemblance 

to other long-running wars across the Muslim world. 

Therefore, this war is not unlike the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which the U.S. military has found 

itself enmeshed since 2001. However, the enormous 

outpouring of Western analyses of those wars and 

of insurgency and counterinsurgency seems, for the 

most part, to have bypassed the conflict or conflicts in 

the North Caucasus. Few studies, if any, incorporate 

these wars into their findings or use them as examples 

to confirm or to criticize one or another theory of insurgency or counterinsurgency that have developed 

over the last decade.

This monograph represents an initial attempt to 

rectify that oversight by focusing on one of the mostcritical areas of study for the analysts of contemporary 

war; namely, the interaction between the counterinsurgents’ armed forces and their operations on the 

one hand, and the culture (anthropologically-defined) 

and mores of the host population on the other hand. 

These mores, or manifestations of culture, are con-
xii

fined to neither religion, nationality, nor ethnicity, 

which are always slippery concepts in this part of the 

world. Rather, the cultural formations analyzed here 

relate to what anthropologists call “honor societies,” 

which are founded on strong norms of honor, shame, 

and masculinity; namely, the codes of retaliation, silence, and hospitality. It is possible that these norms 

may have predated the Islamization of these societies, 

although by now they are thoroughly entwined with 

religion and concepts of ethnicity, if not national selfidentification.

Indeed, this point marks the first time in this reviewer’s knowledge that anyone has gone beyond the 

study of culture and religion to invoke or excavate 

these socio-anthropological categories as being major factors for recruitment, although students of other 

insurgencies who are regularly cited here have noted 

them in passing. This monograph, however, represents the first example of theory building, placing 

those concepts at the center of the analysis of motivations for recruitment of both insurgents and counterinsurgents. One hopes that this will lead to a series 

of further fruitful efforts to conduct a similar analysis 

of other wars. Moreover, this is also one of the first 

examples of the effort to conduct such a comparative 

analysis of the North Caucasus war in the light of 

Western theory. Robert Schaefer did this with regard 

to the principles of war for Chechnya; however, nobody has followed up on that endeavor.3

 Apart from 

Schaefer’s systematic efforts at analyzing the wars in 

the North Caucasus empirically, other scholars’ efforts, for all their undoubted merits, have eschewed 

either the comparative approach or the theory-building approach, or both.4
xiii

This comparative approach and effort to build theory is what makes this study particularly relevant to 

the U.S. Army and other branches of the U.S. Armed 

Forces. Given the new emphasis in the U.S. military 

of sensitizing troops to local cultures and mores, and 

even creating specially designated units of such forces, it becomes even more profitable, if not imperative, 

to view the Russian experience in the light of global 

manifestations of such wars and of the salience of 

such cultural values. For it is clear that these values 

or codes, to use the author’s terminology, are not confined to the North Caucasus. For example, Arab societies in general appear to be very much caught up 

in these codes and are widely seen as honor societies 

or cultures. We see signs of this in the long-running 

wars between the Israelis and the Palestinians, if not 

in the earlier manifestations of this phenomenon in Israel’s wars against the Arab states. Similarly, the wellknown code of omertà in the Sicilian Mafia equates 

almost literally to the author’s code of silence. Thus, 

Souleimanov has tapped into a rich vein of historical 

and societal thought that locates warlike behaviors 

in these codes—generally codes of masculinity—and 

finds them in societies as disparate as North Africa, 

the antebellum U.S. South, the contemporary Middle 

East, and southern Italy. Moreover, such confrontations between insurgents and counterinsurgents in 

these societies often are heavily influenced not only by 

the insurgents’ behavior in terms of these codes, but 

also by the fact that in many cases, we are witnessing a 

so-called “war of national liberation” or a colony’s uprising against a foreign occupier.5

 Moreover, in Western literature, as Albert Memmi observes, the trope for 

such behaviors may already be found in the relationship between Prospero and Caliban in Shakespeare’s 

The Tempest.

6

 As past and ongoing wars suggest, hon-
xiv

or societies are not only tenacious in their defense of 

their values; they are also notoriously difficult places 

in which foreigners may try to establish durable and 

effective states or simply governing institutions.

What the author makes clear here is that despite 20 

years of warfare, Moscow has not yet found the master key that would enable it to employ those codes for 

its own benefit. The exception is in Chechnya, where 

Moscow has been able to use the Kadyrov family—

originally Father Akhmad, and after his murder, his 

son Ramzan—to “pacify” Chechnya. In general, Russia’s ruthless, violent, and often criminal behavior has 

obstructed pacification of the North Caucasus and 

regularly affronted the naïve population’s mores. As 

the author has found, Russia and Russian-led attacks 

upon these codes in Chechnya and the North Caucasus have facilitated recruitment into both the CE and 

the earlier Chechen movement; that was the original 

spark that ignited the wider current war. In this respect, the author’s research and interviews appear to 

conform to the findings of much Western research into 

the conflicts of our time.

Indeed, the case of the Kadyrov family represents 

not just the need for establishing a political order 

that is responsive to those indigenous mores of these 

honor societies; it also evokes a recurrent pattern of 

Russian imperial history that is marked by hundreds 

of years of experience in imperial policing, empirebuilding, and thus, insurgency and counterinsurgency. Although we are simplifying drastically for 

reasons of space, there appear to be two broad paradigms that have been used, though not always with 

success, by Russian authorities, whether Tsarist, Soviet, or now, post-Soviet. To some degree, these paradigms are alternative strategies not usable in tandem. 

Rather, we often find that where the first direct, brutal 
xv

assault upon the targeted society fails, it is replaced by 

a second, more indirect, and socio-politically sophisticated paradigm. However, there is some overlap in 

the tactics employed in either or both of these strategic 

paradigms. For example, deportation has been a major feature of both paradigms since it was first tried 

by Ivan III in 1478 against Novgorod. Nonetheless, for 

analytical purposes, we can distinguish between these 

two paradigms, especially in the North Caucasus.

The first of these strategic paradigms is one of 

brutal suppression and comprehensive direct assault 

on the enemy and its society. There are many examples: the Ermolov campaigns of brutal assaults on the 

people and mores of the North Caucasus in 1816-25, 

and those of similar provenance launched by his successors in the 1830-50s.7

 The most prominent recent 

examples are the collectivization struggle of 1929-33, 

where whole communities and peoples were deported 

or, as in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, subjected to famine; 

and Stalin’s deportations of many nationalities, particularly in the North Caucasus in 1943-44.8

 Other such 

examples are the suppression of the Tambov peasant 

insurgency in 1920-21, which General Mikhail Tukhachevsky drowned in blood. To be sure, even in some 

of these dramas, e.g. collectivization, there were retreats and periods of concessions to the “insurgents.” 

However, in the course of these wars, the brutal direct 

attack on people, and equally important, their way of 

life, is quite visible and the primary approach. Often, 

however, such responses were unavailable to Russian 

rulers, or the direct approach failed, forcing them to 

resort to alternative strategies.

Thus, the second paradigm attempts to combine 

a relatively more tailored or measured force (that is, 

relative in Russian terms of the time in question) with 
xvi

political and cultural-religious-economic concessions 

to the insurgents; the exploitation of indigenous values to achieve state objectives; or the incorporation, 

assimilation, or co-optation of elites—in this case the 

Kadyrov family, since Akhmad Kadyrov was the 

Mufti of Chechnya—who are willing to work with the 

Russian government. Common to the periods of a resort to this strategy is the fact that they generally occur 

in the context of a protracted campaign when the state 

is relatively weak, distracted by other contingencies, 

unsuccessful in its direct approach, or fully aware that 

size of the problem precludes the direct and brutal 

tactics of the previous strategy. In the North Caucasus, we see this particular strategy in play in 1920-21, 

when the Bolsheviks sought to consolidate their rule 

in the face of another of the periodic ethnoreligious 

uprisings against its authority, in the Second Chechen 

War of 1999-2007 (and during Ramzan Kadyrov’s rule 

since then) and in the 1850s and 1860s in the North 

Caucasus against the legendary Shamil.9 We also see it 

in the 1920s in Central Asia in Russia’s attempt to suppress the Basmachi uprising when the direct approach 

had failed there.

Generally, this approach comes into play when 

it becomes clear that the direct and more brutal policy has failed and that something else must be tried. 

These concessions reflect a more sophisticated understanding and employment of the measures needed to 

undermine the cohesion and thus, the base of support 

for the insurgents by splitting the movement and balancing concession and appeals to indigenous values 

with repression. It is not only a question of making 

concessions to their way of life, nationality, and religion. It is quite consciously a strategy of imperial 

management, whose main component is to find those 
xvii

elites who are willing to work with Moscow or St. 

Petersburg, install them in leadership positions, coopt them and their followers into the Russian ruling 

elite, which always was a cosmopolitan affair, make 

the requisite concessions to the people; and, over the 

long term, integrate these elites into the Russian state, 

thus depriving the population of a leadership stratum 

with which to lead any future revolts. Throughout the 

history of successful Russian imperial advances, we 

find either or both Moscow and St. Petersburg being 

able to rely quite successfully on the elites who form a 

pro-Russian party amidst targeted territories, peoples, 

and states.10 Combined with overwhelming force and 

Moscow’s ability—a common operational thread in all 

its ventures—to isolate the theater from foreign eyes 

and support, this blending of force and co-optation 

has generally proven successful, most recently in 

Chechnya.

Using the Kadyrovs, and the growing war-weariness of those left in Chechnya, Moscow was able to 

craft an appeal to Chechens that the insurgents, who 

had in fact succumbed to a Salafist and Saudi-inspired 

version of Islam, not unlike that espoused by Osama 

bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, were interlopers—

outsiders who sought to hijack an indigenous Islamic 

theology for their own political purposes. Whether 

this development and promotion of religious schisms 

among the Chechens was a conscious Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) strategy 

or a serendipitous exploitation of an opportunity that 

presented itself is irrelevant because the exploitation 

of this tactic fit so well with the evolving Russian strategy after the shameful defeat of 1996.11
xviii

Finally, as the insurgency weakened, Moscow was 

able to rely increasingly on the Kadyrovs and its policy of Chechenization buttressed by the kadyrovtsy’s 

(troops loyal to the Kadyrovs) and a massive infusion of capital for reinvestment or redevelopment of 

Chechnya, and the granting of enormous autonomous 

powers to Ramzan Kadyrov who has said he is Putin’s 

man.12 Here again, we see the dividends that accrue 

to Moscow from its ability to split the elite, namely, 

the ability to play what amounts to the amnesty card 

as many insurgents either think revolt is hopeless or 

that Kadyrov is achieving as much of the elite’s former 

dream as is possible.

As the author points out, the kadyrovtsy were also 

successful and have remained successful despite their 

brutality because they invoke and respond to these 

same codes and are thus much more in harmony 

with the deep cultural structures of the local population. However, what has occurred in Chechnya has 

not happened in the North Caucasus and, as of 2014, 

there was no sign that Moscow would find answers to 

its problems anytime soon. Indeed, there is growing 

economic pressure being brought to bear on Russia.

Moscow‘s ability to create viable economic opportunity in the North Caucasus and sustain it after 2015 

will come under increasing strain from: imperial overstretch (the invasion, and now obligation, to support 

Crimea), Western sanctions, and the extinguishing of 

access to foreign capital; the huge decline in energy 

prices that strikes at Moscow’s “cash crop” (the state’s 

ability to gain income from energy); the depreciation 

of the ruble; and the huge structural problems attendant upon a kleptocratic, technologically uncompetitive, and backward economy. Meanwhile, the welldocumented involvement of North Caucasian radicals 
xix

in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and 

the fact of regular “commuting” of the men between 

theaters, suggests the potential for the ISIS threat to 

fuse with the CE just as the CE fused or affiliated with 

al-Qaeda a decade or more ago.

Consequently, we should not expect to see the end 

of violence in the North Caucasus any more than we 

should expect it to end in any of the theaters where it 

is not evidently deeply ensconced (e.g., Mali, Libya, 

Hamas, and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon, Syria, 

Iraq, and Afghanistan). Under the circumstance, it 

should be clear that the fires burning in the North 

Caucasus resemble, if they are not identical to, those 

burning throughout the Middle East, Africa, and 

Afghanistan. In those cases, this monograph makes 

a significant contribution to the taxonomy of these 

movements and provides those who would study 

these wars, or who must prosecute them as counterinsurgents, with much food for productive thought.

Therefore, this is a provocative monograph that 

hopefully will open other analysts’ eyes to the importance of these codes and sensitize U.S. and allied 

militaries to the need for an appreciation of the power 

and importance of these codes in current and, unfortunately, future wars.

 

 DR. STEPHEN J. BLANK

 Senior Fellow

 American Foreign Policy 

 Council
xx

ENDNOTES - PREFACE

1. A title like Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999, clearly 

captures that outcome.

2. Alexey Malashenko, “The Grozny Attack—What’s Next?” 

Carnegie Moscow Center, December 11, 2014.

3. Robert W. Schaefer, The Insurgency in Chechnya and the 

North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger 

Security International, 2011.

4. Gordon M. Hahn, Russia’s Islamic Threat, New Haven, CT: 

Yale University Press, 2007, and subsequent writings cited in this 

monograph: Stephen J. Blank, “Russia’s Ulster: The Chechen War 

and Its Consequences,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of PostSoviet Democratization, Vol. 9, No. 1, Winter 2001.

5. Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized, expanded 

ed., Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1991; Edward C. Banfield, The 

Moral Basis of a Backward Society, New York: The Free Press, 1967; 

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press, 

2005; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, The Shaping of Southern Culture: Honor, Grace, and War, 1760s-1890s, Chapel Hill, NC: The University of 

North Carolina Press, 2001; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Honor and Violence in the Old South, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

6. Memmi.

7. Moshe Gammer, “Russian Strategies in the Conquest of 

Chechnia and Daghestan, 1825-1859,” in Marie Bennigsen Broxup, ed., The North Caucasus Barrier: the Russian Advance Towards 

the Muslim World, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992, pp. 45-61.

8. For recent accounts, see Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe 

Between Hitler and Stalin, New York: Basic Books, 2010; Norman 

M. Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.

9. Schaefer; and Stephen Blank, “The Formation of the Soviet North Caucasus, 1918-24,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 12, 
xxi

No. 1, 1993, pp. 13-32; Alfred J. Rieber, ed., The Politics of Autocracy: Letters of Alexander II to Prince A. I. Bariatinskii, 1857-1864, 

Paris: Mouton, 1966.

10. For example, see John P. LeDonne, The Grand Strategy 

of the Russian Empire 1650-1831, New York: Oxford University 

Press, 2004.

11. Schaefer, pp. 170-172.

12. Svante E. Cornell, “The ‘Afghanization’ of the North 

Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict,” in 

Stephen J. Blank, ed., Russia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the 

North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army 

War College, 2012.

xxiii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

EMIL ASLAN SOULEIMANOV is an associate professor of political science at the Department of Security 

Studies, Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social 

Sciences, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Dr. Souleimanov’s current research focuses on the 

political ethnography of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus. He is the co-author 

of The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists (with Huseyn Aliyev, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: 

Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered

(Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). His work has appeared or 

is forthcoming in International Security, World Politics, 

International Politics, Journal of Strategic Studies, Terrorism and Political Violence, Post-Soviet Affairs, EuropeAsia Studies, Middle East Policy, and others.

xxv

SUMMARY

Since the mid-1990s, Chechnya and the North 

Caucasus have attracted the attention of policymakers, scholars, and experts interested in the theory and 

practice of separatism, insurgency, and terrorism. As 

a natural laboratory of political violence in its most 

distinct forms, the North Caucasus, with inherent ethnic divisions, religious radicalism, an intricate sociocultural profile, and uneasy center-periphery relationships, has been a source of impressive scholarship. 

While a lot has been written on the causes and contexts of the North Caucasus insurgency, a consensus 

is still to be reached in the academic and expert community as to the structural factors leading to violent 

mobilization and pro-insurgent support in Russia’s 

volatile region. Moreover, the recent trend of weakening insurgent groups operating in the North Caucasus 

remains largely unexplored. 

This monograph builds on and expands the extant 

scholarship. Specifically, it contributes to the general 

understanding of the root causes of the regional insurgency and its recent developments. The monograph 

points to the necessity of comprehending both dimensions in order to evaluate the viability of the North 

Caucasus insurgency. 

First, it sorts out the plethora of studies on the 

structural causes of the violent mobilization in Russia’s most multi-ethnic region, categorizing them 

along the lines of three main approaches: Chechnya 

and North Caucasus as a battleground of global Salafi 

jihad; individual grievances; and, protest to social 

injustice and the erosion of traditional values. This 

monograph refers to the most up-to-date ethnographic research in the field that points to the salience of 
xxvi

individual and collective grievances. Due to the culture 

of honor, many young North Caucasians have sought 

to join insurgent groups for the sake of revenge, largely irrespective of political or ideological motivations. 

This indicates that the North Caucasus insurgency has 

been, from its very beginning, a homegrown phenomenon. Subsequently, the monograph categorizes the 

scholarship on the causes of pro-insurgent support, a 

heavily under-researched field in both theoretical and 

empirical literature. It identifies two main competing 

approaches explaining pro-insurgent support: greed 

and sociocultural codes. This monograph also points 

to the crucial importance, underexplored in previous 

research, of the sociocultural codes of hospitality and 

silence. It illustrates that these codes, embedded in the 

local cultural tradition, have prompted part of the local population to provide support to the insurgents in 

spite of the risk of severe punishment at the hand of 

the incumbent power holder. 

The second part of the monograph focuses on the 

recent trends in the regional insurgency. First, combining primary and secondary data, it identifies four 

main factors that have since the early-2010s led to the 

gradual decline of the North Caucasus insurgency. 

The first factor leading to a decline of the insurgency 

is the selective targeting by Russian and local counterinsurgents of the insurgents’ local support base, 

including the insurgents’ relatives. Over time, this 

controversial practice, well-proved in Chechnya in 

the early-2000s, has prompted many locals across 

the North Caucasus to withhold support from the 

insurgents. The second factor leading to a decline of 

the insurgency is the deployment of elite counterinsurgent forces and army units in special operations, 

and the withdrawal of counterinsurgency operations 
xxvii

from local police forces known for their incompetence 

and corruption. The third factor leading to a decline of 

the insurgency is the infiltration by counterinsurgent 

agents of insurgent groups, resulting in their subsequent decapitation. Since early-2010, this method has 

led to the substantial weakening of the locally operating jihadist groups, because the loss of experienced 

leaders sufficiently affected the jihadists’ capability 

to operate effectively. The fourth factor leading to the 

decline of the insurgency is the volunteering of thousands of North Caucasians to fight in the Syrian Civil 

War away from their native region. The monograph 

shows that internal disputes that plagued the numerous factions of the Caucasus Emirate (CE), a loosely 

organized group, have prompted thousands of North 

Caucasians to travel to Syria. This, in turn, has reduced the share of prospective recruits to the locally 

operating insurgent groups. 

Having explained the factors behind the unprecedented weakening of the North Caucasus insurgency 

in the recent years, the monograph moves on to explore the important shortcomings of these factors. 

First, despite severe penalization at the hand of the 

incumbents in compliance with the locally embedded 

sociocultural codes of retaliation, hospitality, and silence, a segment of the North Caucasian population 

has still joined insurgent groups or provided support 

to them. As long as the incumbent forces continue to 

target the local population, avengers will recruit in 

order to restore individual and family honor. Despite 

important setbacks experienced by local insurgent 

groups in recent years, these structural causes have remained intact. Second, with elite Russian forces, famed 

for their low numbers, deployed in the distant battlefields of Eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and Syria, the bur-
xxviii

den of fighting the local insurgency has again largely 

fallen onto the shoulders of the local police and minor 

counterterrorist units. This has recently reduced the 

overall effectiveness of counterinsurgent and counterterrorist operations in the North Caucasus. Moreover, 

while the current situation enables the local counterinsurgent forces to face the weakened insurgent groups, 

this monograph shows that in the short and medium 

term, the situation may reverse should the insurgency 

be bolstered by new waves of recruits. Fourth, many 

frustrated North Caucasians have recently grown 

disillusioned with the “Syrian Jihad” in general and 

the Islamic State in particular. Therefore, they have 

sought to stay in their native region. In the short term, 

this may lead to an increase in the number of North 

Caucasians recruited to the locally operating jihadist 

groups, invigorating the regional insurgency. 
1

THE NORTH CAUCASUS INSURGENCY:

 DEAD OR ALIVE?

On April 16, 2009, then-President Dmitry Medvedev announced the much-anticipated end of the counterterrorist operation in Chechnya, an autonomous 

republic in the North Caucasus along Russia’s restless 

southwestern border. The country’s Counterterrorist 

Committee declared an immediate end to all military 

operations in Chechnya, with thousands of Russian 

troops set to leave the troublesome republic within 

weeks. Public opinion considered this a personal victory for Vladimir Putin, who came to power and subsequently strengthened his grip over the country as 

a gifted statesman and strategist, capable of eliminating the threat of terrorism and insurgency. Ramzan 

Kadyrov, Chechnya’s strongman and Putin’s close 

ally, boasted to the Russian media: “We are extremely 

satisfied. The modern Chechen Republic is a peaceful 

and budding territory. The end of the counterterrorist operation will spur on economic growth in the republic.”1

 At the time, this statement was considered 

a milestone by many in Russia, because of its statecontrolled media. It appeared that the violence that 

had plagued the North Caucasus almost incessantly 

since the mid-1990s had at last come to an end. 

However, not all shared the optimism of Russian 

and Chechen elites. Grigory Shvedov, a liberal Russian journalist and expert on the North Caucasus, stated at the time that “the number of bombings, terrorist 

attacks and murders as in the past remains high; they 

occur every week. It is a fairy tale that Chechnya has 

become a stable region.”2 Others located both within 

and outside of Russia, who were knowledgeable about 
2

the situation on the ground in the North Caucasus, 

also challenged the mainstream viewpoint, while still 

acknowledging a certain improvement in Chechnya. 

However, these voices went unheard in Russia.

While Russian troops, aided by their Chechen 

proxies, managed to gain relative control over the 

situation in Chechnya—the former epicenter of insurgent violence in the North Caucasus—things soon 

deteriorated elsewhere in the region. Since approximately the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2010, insurgency-related violence has skyrocketed across the 

entire North Caucasus region. Dagestan, Ingushetia, 

and Kabardino-Balkaria emerged as new hotbeds of 

insurgency, eclipsing Chechnya.3 Local jihadist groups 

started making inroads into North Ossetia, a predominantly Orthodox republic in the North Caucasus, and 

into Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, a significantly Russified autonomous republic far from the established 

hotbeds of insurgent violence in the Northeastern 

Caucasus.4 According to some reports, North Caucasian insurgents went so far as to establish connections 

in Russia’s Muslim-dominated Volga-Ural region as 

well.5 According to Ivan Sydoruk, Deputy Prosecutor 

General of the North Caucasus Federal District, the 

region witnessed a 300 percent increase in “serious 

terrorist attacks” during the first 8 months of 2010, 

compared to the same period in 2009.6 In August 2012 

alone, at least 182 registered deaths related to the ongoing insurgency were reported in the North Caucasus, and at least 100 deaths on average were reported 

every single month from the region in the same year.7

Moreover, violence did not remain confined to 

the borders of Russia’s North Caucasus republics. In 

March 2010, two crowded subway stations in Moscow were targeted by suicide bombers, resulting in 
3

the deaths of 40 civilians. In January 2011, a bomb exploded in Moscow’s busy Domodedovo International 

Airport, leaving 37 dead. In 2013, three suicide bombings on October 21, December 29, and December 30, 

shook Volgograd, an important city on the Volga River, leaving a total of 41 dead and dozens injured.8

 In 

addition, dozens of violent attacks aimed at civilians, 

law enforcement officials (siloviki), and pro-regime authorities occurred across Russia proper and the North 

Caucasus. It increasingly appeared that, rather than 

winning a war against terrorists, the country was instead being engulfed by waves of violence. The early2010s also saw Dagestan, a multi-ethnic autonomous 

republic on the shores of the Caspian Sea that had 

been a rather peaceful area in previous years, turn into 

the nucleus of the North Caucasus insurgency.9

Since 2014, however, the North Caucasus jihadist insurgency has undergone an abrupt turnaround. 

Between 2013 and 2014, insurgency-related violence 

decreased by around 47 percent, thereby marking the 

most abrupt decrease in violence in the history of the 

regional insurgency. In absolute numbers, only 37 civilians were killed in 2014, a sharp decrease compared 

to 104 civilian casualties in 2013. While 424 siloviki

were killed in 2013, the number decreased by nearly 

half, to 221 deaths, the following year. While North 

Caucasian jihadists carried out 100 detonations in 

2013, this figure shrank to less than 25 in 2014. On the 

other hand, only 248 insurgents were killed in 2014, as 

a consequence of counterinsurgent raids, in comparison to 298 in 2013.10

Despite the decline in violence discussed above, 

insurgency-related violence in the North Caucasus 

appears to be gaining momentum once again. In 2014, 

the number of casualties (52 killed and 65 injured) 
4

rose by 15.8 percent from 2013, with most casualties 

taking place in the last quarter of 2014.11 By mid-2015, 

77 people had been killed in the North Caucasus.12

These figures only show a slight change; therefore, 

they should be taken cautiously, but do attest to Russia’s failure to completely wipe out the regional insurgency, as frequently claimed by Russian authorities.13

In the short term, these oscillating figures may indicate a reversion to more insurgency-related violence 

in the region conditioned by a slow rise of the North 

Caucasian insurgency. 

Importantly, a consolidated attack in December 

2014 revived doubts about the alleged elimination of 

Chechen insurgent groups that was frequently boasted by Russian authorities.14 At that time, around 20 

Chechen insurgents executed a surprise attack in Grozny, and having ambushed a unit of Chechen special 

police—known as the kadyrovtsy—on the outskirts of 

Grozny, the insurgents penetrated into the city center 

and seized an important administrative building. According to official reports, 14 pro-Moscow Chechen 

police officers were killed as a result of the intense 

fighting, and most of the attackers appear to have 

died. Against the background of the December 2014 

attack in Grozny, Mairbek Vatchagaev claims that 

harsh acts of retaliatory violence notwithstanding, 

around 100 Chechen insurgents still operate in Chechnya’s wooded mountains.15 There are several hundred 

insurgents in the neighboring republic of Dagestan, 

with dozens of insurgents also still active in Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.16 Triumphant reports 

from federal and local authorities about the ultimate 

defeat of the local jihadist underground are contrasted 

with periodic news resurfacing in the media of liquidating important insurgent leaders and their groups, 
5

as in the case of presumably successful counterterrorist operations carried out in Kabardino-Balkaria and 

Dagestan in late-August of 2016.17

Having declared victory over the North Caucasus 

insurgency, in general, Russian authorities have endeavored to remain silent on the recent incidents of 

insurgency-related violence in the North Caucasus, 

and in Chechnya in particular. For example, Chechen 

and federal media chose not to report on a bomb blast 

in Grozny on February 26, 2015.18 When five Russian 

service members from the Ministry of Interior’s Special Forces were severely wounded in a bomb blast 

in Chechnya’s Urus-Martan district, the incident was 

given virtually no coverage in Chechen and Russian 

media outlets.19 On August 8, 2015, the Russian commander of a paratrooper unit and two service members 

were wounded in the wooded terrain of Chechnya’s 

Achkhoy-Martan district after stepping on an antipersonnel mine. In contrast to the widely publicized 

reports on liquidated insurgents and their leaders, 

this news received virtually no federal coverage.20 Despite the silence, the Russian authorities do appear to 

be concerned about the North Caucasus insurgency’s 

ability to inflict sensitive blows. According to a statement in February 2015 by Sergey Ivanov, Chief of Staff 

of the Presidential Administration of Russia, the situation in parts of the North Caucasus remains tense, 

with the “number of [terrorist and insurgent] crimes 

having increased since last year [2014].”21 The latest 

developments illustrate that, despite long-standing 

counterinsurgency efforts, the insurgency in the region has survived. 

During the period from 2013–2014, the North Caucasus insurgency experienced a sharp decline in violent activity, a decline that superseded its peak in the 
6

early-2010s. The statistics in 2014, nevertheless, show 

a slight increase in insurgency-related violence, particularly in Dagestan—the most populous republic 

of the North Caucasus and the leader of the regional 

insurgency. 

What explains the decline of insurgency-related 

violence during the period 2013–2014, and what factors are to be held accountable for the recent rise in 

insurgency-related violence? Is the North Caucasus 

insurgency on the brink of extinction, given Russia’s 

immense superiority in military, economic, and demographic resources?

This monograph offers a comprehensive analysis 

of the developments in the North Caucasus insurgency 

since 2013. It claims that the main counterinsurgency 

methods of selectively targeting insurgents and their 

supporters, collective punishment of insurgents’ relatives, and infiltration and decapitation of insurgent 

groups currently deployed in the North Caucasus—

and particularly in Dagestan—are rooted in Russia’s 

relatively successful counterinsurgency campaign in 

Chechnya, conducted from the mid-2000s to around 

2010. In addition, the monograph analyzes the impact 

that the departure of hundreds of North Caucasian 

volunteers to Syria to participate in the local jihad has 

had on the North Caucasian insurgency. This monograph also offers insight into the microcosm of the 

North Caucasus insurgency and counterinsurgency 

to examine the vicissitudes of the ongoing violence 

in Russia’s troublesome border region in the broader 

context of the sources of violent mobilization and proinsurgent support. Identifying the causes of violent 

mobilization and pro-insurgent support is crucial for 

the survival of any insurgency. This monograph traces 

the impact of Moscow’s recent counterinsurgency pol-
7

icies on individual fighters’ determination to mobilize 

and the local population’s willingness or reluctance to 

support insurgents. In so doing, the monograph examines the key sources of the North Caucasian insurgency that are tied to its long-term viability. 

Unlike the prevalent macro-level work on the regional insurgency that has evolved around the notions 

of history, ideology, and repression, this monograph 

treats insurgent activity as a dynamic process that 

hinges on local support and is responsive to the incumbents’ use of indiscriminate or selective violence. 

It looks into the key sources of the North Caucasus insurgency, particularly the persistence of semi-archaic 

sociocultural codes of retaliation, hospitality, and silence that ensure violent mobilization and pro-insurgency support, even in the face of acts of retaliation by 

adversaries. The monograph concludes that, despite 

considerable setbacks recently experienced by regional insurgent groups, the North Caucasus insurgency is 

likely to survive in the years to come. 

The monograph is divided into four main sections: 

the first section serves as the introduction and consists 

of a portrayal of the North Caucasus, a region largely 

unknown to the western readership. This section emphasizes the history of armed conflict and insurgency, 

the ethnography of the region—namely the persisting social hierarchy and norms that have shaped 

the violence in the region—and the region’s current 

socioeconomic and political circumstances. The major causes of violent mobilization and pro-insurgent 

support in the North Caucasus are categorized and 

critically evaluated by drawing from elaborate scholarship on the topic. The second section deals with the 

Russian counterinsurgency in Chechnya during the 

2000–2010 time period, and scrutinizes the sources 
8

of Russia’s relatively effective counterinsurgency in 

the troublesome republic: the deployment of selective 

targeting against insurgents and their supporters; collective punishment of the insurgents’ relatives with 

the aim of deterring prospective insurgents from joining insurgent groups; and, infiltration and decapitation of Chechen insurgent groups. The third section 

then analyzes the impact of these counterinsurgency 

methods—previously deployed in Chechnya—on the 

North Caucasus insurgency and the rest of the North 

Caucasus, particularly in Dagestan, a hotbed of the regional insurgency. While the initial part of this section 

focuses on the relative successes of these methods, the 

second part casts light on the shortcomings of them. 

The fourth section summarizes the findings of this 

monograph. 
9

I. INTRODUCING THE NORTH CAUCASUS

The North Caucasus is a predominantly mountainous region stretching from the Black Sea to the 

Caspian Sea, located north of the Greater Caucasus 

mountain range and constituting Europe’s natural 

geographical border with Asia. Inhabited by dozens 

of indigenous ethnic groups, the region has historically been considered a Babylon of languages.22 Sunni Islam is currently the main religion of most indigenous 

North Caucasian ethnic groups, with the exceptions 

of the predominantly Orthodox North Ossetians, and 

a small population of minority Shiite Lezgins and Judaic Tats in the southernmost region of Dagestan.23

The North Caucasus is also home to a strong Russian 

minority, particularly in the central (North Ossetia) 

and western (Kabardino-Balkaria and KarachayevoCherkesiya) areas. With the exception of the Russiandominated Stavropol and Krasnodar provinces, what 

is commonly referred to as the North Caucasus24 is divided into six ethnic autonomous republics (from east 

to west): Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Cherkesiya. 

The collective population of these republics is less than 

seven million. 

A HISTORY OF REBELLIONS

The region served as a battleground of insurgency 

from the late-18th century to the mid-19th century. 

Facing an invading Russian army, a series of rebellions broke out in the region—which was dominated 

by village communities and small principalities—and 

turned into what came to be known as the Caucasian 
10

War—the longest protracted war in Russian history.25

Periodic uprisings continued to occur even after the 

backbone of the highlanders’ resistance was broken 

during the period between 1859 and 1864, particularly 

in the eastern parts of the region, which preserved 

their genuine ethno-demographic makeup.26 The last 

hotbed of anti-Soviet resistance was quelled in Chechnya’s mountains as late as the 1940s, with the Chechen 

population (along with the Ingush and KarachayBalkars) deported en masse to Central Asia on the pretext of their collaboration with the Nazis. 

Following World War II, autonomous republics 

existed in the North Caucasus, and the deported populations were allowed to return to their homeland in 

the second half of the 1950s. In the late-1980s, following the unprecedented détente, separatist aspirations 

strengthened among some North Caucasian ethnic 

groups, particularly the Chechens. The Russian army 

entered Chechnya in 1994, following a 3-year period 

of Chechen de facto independence. As Russian and 

Chechen elites were unable to negotiate Chechnya’s 

status as part of the Russian Federation, a war ensued 

that claimed the lives of dozens of thousands of people, mostly Chechen civilians.27 Severely unpopular 

in Russia, the war ultimately ended in 1996 with Russian troops pulling out of the troublesome republic. 

At the time, this move was widely considered to be 

Moscow’s acknowledgment of its military defeat to 

an adversary, which was one million people-strong, 

as well as a source of shame for Russian nationalists.28

Following a 3-year intermezzo, the war resurfaced 

with the Chechen-Dagestani jihadist incursion into 

Dagestan’s eastern areas in August of 1999, along 

with a subsequent wave of terrorist bombings in Russian cities. Attributed—falsely, as it turned out—to 
11

Chechen jihadists as a form of retaliation for their 

failed incursion into Dagestan, these terrorist bombings generated widespread outrage across Russian 

society. Soon thereafter, Russian troops marched 

into Chechnya in the fall of 1999, marking the beginning of what came to be known as the Second RussoChechen War.29 Grozny was retaken by the Russian 

army by March 2000, and by the early-2000s, Russian 

troops, aided by pro-Moscow Chechen paramilitary 

units known as the kadyrovtsy, largely held sway over 

Chechnya. The conflict was not limited to Chechnya, 

however, and quickly spread across the North Caucasus. This was particularly demonstrated by a series of 

raids conducted by local insurgent groups on Ingushetia’s then-capital city Nazran (June 2004), KabardinoBalkaria’s capital city Nalchik (October 2005), and the 

increasingly impudent insurgent and terrorist attacks 

and assassinations in Dagestan. 

Large-scale use of violence against true or alleged 

Salafis across the region in the wake of the 1999 bombings, reinforced by the 9/11 attacks in the United States, 

all led to the radicalization of local, predominantly 

peaceful, Salafi communities,30 and also contributed to 

the emergence of hundreds of non-Salafi avengers.31

In 2007, the leadership of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria proclaimed the establishment of the 

Caucasus Emirate (CE), a virtual theocracy based on 

the rule of Islamic law.32

Despite having virtually no control on the ground, 

the CE lays claim to the vast area of the North Caucasus for its domain.33 At the time, this move was 

interpreted as the Chechen jihadist leadership’s efforts to spread the armed conflict across the region, 

capitalizing on the grievances of the North Caucasian 

population.34
12

ETHNOGRAPHIC PROFILE

The North Caucasus historically has been considered a socially conservative region, partly due to the 

mountainous region’s isolation from the rest of the 

world. The eastern republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, 

and Ingushetia constituted some of the most traditionalist areas of the former Soviet Union. A number 

of important socioeconomic changes occurred in the 

decades following World War II, and many highlanders moved down to urban areas or the cities of Russia proper. Although urbanization, modernization, 

and the influx of a large Russian-speaking population 

have somewhat reduced the scale of traditionalism in 

the region, it persists to this day. 

Ingushetia, Chechnya, and, to a lesser extent, 

Dagestan, are clan societies, with individuals in these 

republics usually conceived of as members of a particular clan.35 These republics’ strong sense of clan-based 

solidarity affects a variety of social practices, such as 

retaliation, and forms of collective responsibility or 

punishment.36 In Ingushetia and Chechnya, and to 

a lesser degree, in the heavily mountainous areas of 

Central and Western Dagestan, the custom of blood 

revenge still persists. Revolving around the notion of 

honor, this custom dictates that a male who has suffered an offense in the form of a grave insult—such 

as the killing or injuring of his relatives or rape of a 

female relative—is expected to retaliate by his fellow 

community members. Retaliation may be directed either against the direct culprit of the offense or, in the 

case that he cannot be reached, against the culprit’s 

male relatives.37 Collective responsibility and punishment have therefore been considered legitimate social 
13

practices in Ingushetia and Chechnya. Retaliation may 

be carried out either by the “offended” male himself, 

if he has survived the offense, or by his male relatives. 

Retaliation usually urges counter-retaliation, as members of the affected family or clan also want to exact 

retaliation on the offenders in order to avoid public 

disdain. This leads to a vicious circle of violence, with 

blood feuds lasting for generations. While the tradition of blood feuds has largely faded away in the rest 

of the North Caucasus, the code of retaliation still endures. 

The code of hospitality guided the lives of highlanders for centuries and dictates that its adherents 

care for those in need. While this includes both insiders and outsiders, North Caucasians—bound by the 

principle of a clan or neighborhood-based solidarity—have prioritized support to insiders over outsiders. Historically, the code of hospitality has applied 

to abreks—avengers or outlaws—who have challenged 

the Russian authorities and, to a lesser extent, the local 

nobility that are perceived as allied with the Russian 

colonizers.38 To this day, the local population considers the provision of support to insurgents fighting 

against the unjust, repressive, and corrupt system associated with the authorities to be a matter of honor.39

The code of silence, similar to the southern Italian 

custom of omertà, discourages the highlanders from 

discussing their internal affairs with outsiders and instead to resolve issues internally. Collaboration with 

the authorities or law enforcement is discouraged, 

even if one’s life, property, or honor is at stake. Individuals are instead expected to resolve their troubles 

on their own, and “complaining” is considered behavior unworthy of a highlander.40
14

The natives of the North Caucasus are famous in 

Russia for their strong, socially conservative, and traditionalist views. This has manifested itself particularly in the North Caucasians’ negative stance toward 

homosexuality—a controversial issue in Russia—as 

well as female emancipation, drug abuse, and other 

phenomena considered by many, particularly in the 

Northeast Caucasus, to constitute a dangerous erosion 

of the local population’s age-old values. In general, the 

eastern North Caucasus is more socially conservative 

than the rest of the region, with rural and particularly 

isolated wooded mountainous areas more conservative than urban areas.41

SOCIOECONOMIC AND POLITICAL 

SITUATION

Although indicators vary across the region, the 

North Caucasus is among Russia’s poorest regions.42

Historically, unemployment rates have been high in 

the region, and according to independent estimates, 

around 80 percent of Chechnya’s population was 

unemployed in 2014.43 In Ingushetia, a tiny republic 

of 3,000 square kilometers, official sources place the 

number of unemployed individuals at around 31 percent.44 In Kabardino-Balkaria, the number stood at 

around 18.3 percent in 2014, followed by Dagestan 

at 13.4 percent.45 Unemployment is extremely high 

among youth and those in the heavily mountainous 

areas of the Northeast Caucasus, which has pushed 

thousands of Chechens, Ingush, and Dagestanis to 

travel to Russian cities outside of the region in search 

of jobs and better lives. While Chechnya’s economic 

decline may be, at least partially, attributed to the two 

wars and lasting counterinsurgency that have beset 
15

the region since the mid-1990s, the dramatic state of 

Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria’s economies are 

largely a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union 

and the ensuing decline of the republic’s industry, 

which was part of the Soviet centralized economy. A 

former hub of regional industry, Dagestan currently 

falls in the middle of Russia’s 83 federal subjects in 

terms of its gross regional product (GRP), while it is 

ranked 70th on the list of Russia’s federal subjects by 

gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, followed 

by Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria,46 and with 

Chechnya 79th, in terms of its GDP. As a result, all 

North Caucasian republics are heavily subsidized by 

Moscow, with federal transfers accounting for around 

70 to 80 percent of these republics’ budgets.47 Against 

this background, natural demographic growth has 

ranked among the highest in Chechnya and Dagestan, 

together with Ingushetia.48

In addition to its difficult economic circumstances, 

the North Caucasus is notorious for corruption, which 

is unprecedented even by Russian standards. Decrying 

this state of affairs, then-President Medvedev went so 

far as to call it “monstrous.”49 According to Dagestani 

sources, no government job could be obtained without 

bribery,50 and in a recent survey, 71 percent of Dagestani respondents associated the escalation of violence 

with the republic’s endemic problems of unemployment and corruption.51 Dagestan is no exception in 

this regard, with similar attitudes prevalent in other 

republics throughout the region. 

The region is also known for its strong ethnic nationalism, which manifests itself particularly in the 

ethnically heterogeneous republics of Dagestan and 

Kabardino-Balkaria. Dagestan is home to 3 million 

inhabitants and 14 major indigenous ethnic groups, 
16

each divided into a considerably larger number of 

subethnic groups and clans or tukhums, territorially 

defined groups of teips. Importantly, none of these 14 

major ethnic groups forms a majority, and the largest ethnic community—the Avars—make up less than 

one-third of the republic’s entire population. Dagestan is often referred to as a consociational republic, 

in which ethnic demography translates into political 

dominance. Districts in which one ethnic community 

forms a majority are governed by representatives of 

that same ethnic community.52 Given the ethnic favoritism and nepotism that Dagestan is notorious for, this 

situation magnifies the extent to which members of 

the ethnic community dominating a given area control its political and economic spheres. This naturally 

creates tension across the republic, with members of 

demographically weaker ethnic communities considering themselves to be discriminated against by their 

demographically stronger fellow Dagestanis. Interestingly, many Dagestanis have opposed the figure of the 

republic’s president, usually an Avar, on the grounds 

that he represents a competing ethnic group.53

While Chechnya and Ingushetia are today largely 

mono-ethnic, a situation similar to that of Dagestan 

has existed in Kabardino-Balkaria, a republic of less 

than 900,000 inhabitants. Due to the demographic 

dominance of the Kabardin majority, which makes 

up around 57 percent of the republic’s population, 

the republic’s economy and politics have been largely 

dominated by the Kabardins, much to the dissatisfaction of the minority Balkars, who make up less than 13 

percent of the republic’s population.54 In the past, this 

has led Turcophone Balkars to seek an autonomous 

republic of their own.
17

UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSES OF 

INSURGENT MOBILIZATION IN THE 

NORTH CAUCASUS

The Global Jihadism Paradigm.

Three major approaches have dominated the debate on the causes of insurgent violence in the North 

Caucasus. In an effort to link the regional insurgency 

to the phenomenon of global jihad, one of these approaches postulates that in general, the regional insurgency is a product of religious fanaticism and 

Salafi-jihadist ideology in particular. This approach 

maintains that the phenomenon was either imported 

to Russia, or inspired and supported from outside of 

Russia.55 An eminent advocate of this approach, Gordon Hahn, argues that the “Chechens’ radicalization 

[happened] under the influence of foreign, jihadist 

terrorist ideologies and movements funded, inspired 

and perhaps still coordinated by Al Qaeda.”56 Indeed, 

Russian authorities began to point out Chechen insurgents’ intimate links to al-Qaeda (and the Taliban) in 

the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. According to Russian diplomats, dozens of Chechens in the 

service of the Taliban took part in the Afghanistan war 

against coalition forces in 2001; however, it was soon 

revealed that rumors of Chechens fighting in the ranks 

of the Taliban or captured by the Americans were ungrounded.57 Russian authorities and state-owned media expounded on the thesis, maintaining that Osama 

bin Laden and Mullah Omar—the Taliban’s mysterious commander—were hiding in the mountains of 

Chechnya following the crackdown on the Taliban by 

the U.S.-led coalition.58
18

According to the proponents of this approach, 

once Salafi-jihadist ideology spread among the ranks 

of Chechen insurgents, it soon expanded across the 

whole of the North Caucasus—a process that gained 

momentum in the late-1990s and particularly in the 

early-2000s.59 Against this background, the establishment of the CE in 2007, which marked the definite decline of the Chechen nationalist project, is seen as a 

logical outcome of the spread of Salafi-jihadism in the 

region; the Chechen and North Caucasians’ growing 

connections with al-Qaeda; and the role of transnational jihadist fighters in Chechnya and the region.60

An important subdivision of this approach focuses on 

the phenomenon of transnational jihadists as an important source of jihadization of the local—initially 

ethno-nationalist—insurgency. During and after the 

First Chechen War (1994–1996), dozens of Arab veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989), who were 

experienced jihadists, took part in the hostilities in the 

North Caucasus. Some of these individuals, such as 

the Saudi-born amir Khattab, asserted themselves as 

leading figures of the Chechen insurgency. 

During the First Chechen War and the interwar 

period (1996–1999), these jihadist leaders gradually radicalized a generation of Chechen fighters and 

frustrated North Caucasian youth. Yossef Bodansky 

claims that it was the influx of Arab jihadists traveling 

to Chechnya in the second half of the 1990s and their 

support from Persian Gulf monarchies that prompted 

the jihadization of the Chechen insurgency movement. The present-day North Caucasus insurgency is 

thus considered a phenomenon that largely lacks local 

roots.61

This assertion is not without merit, as local insurgents have presented themselves and their armed 
19

struggle as an increasingly religious affair that has been 

shaped by Salafi-jihadist principles and aims since at 

least the early-2000s. Following a gradual process of 

Islamization, the Chechen insurgents had fully adopted Salafi-jihadist ideology by 2007. Their organization 

and methods of warfare became increasingly reminiscent of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. Consequently, 

the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria—a predominantly 

ethno-nationalist separatist movement—was replaced 

with the CE, a virtual and supra-ethnic theocracy 

adhering to Salafi-jihadism.62

While the proponents of the global jihadism paradigm prevail in Russia,63 they have been widely criticized in Western academic and expert circles on a variety of grounds. For example, Jean-François Ratelle 

observes that: 

The claims made in these books are rarely supported 

with any footnotes or references and rely on unsupported and irrefutable claims by the authors. In the 

rare cases when they are, the sources are rather unreliable and vague, apparently trying to conceal the 

fact that these authors are presenting their conjectural 

opinions rather than academic analysis.64

A number of authors have challenged the Islamization, or more accurately, the jihadization of the 

Chechen and North Caucasus insurgency as a process 

caused predominantly or exclusively by exogenous 

influences. Matthew Evangelista, Julie Wilhelmsen, 

and Ekaterina Sokirianskaya have pointed to the 

superficial use of religious symbols and rhetoric by 

Chechen political and military elites to legitimize their 

non-religious claims in a society that regards Islam as 

the ultimate source of legitimacy.65 The present author 

points to the example of the jihadization of the anti-
20

regime Chechen elites, led by the infamous warlord 

Shamil Basayev, in interwar Chechnya, as a means of 

compromising and thwarting the secular regime of 

their former President, Aslan Maskhadov.66 The rise of 

political Islam, including Salafi-jihadism, is not proof 

of external influences as such; rather, religious identity, together with secular identities based on ethnicity 

and kinship, became entrenched against the backdrop 

of armed conflict. When overly politicized, religious 

identity guides violent mobilization in conflict, while 

ethnic and kinship bonds constitute momentous forms 

of social capital.67

Ethnographic work provides valuable insight into 

the homegrown nature of jihadization in the North 

Caucasus. For example, the present author has illustrated that, against the backdrop of post-war Chechnya during 1996–1999, when members of weak clans 

were discriminated against by members of stronger 

clans, the weaker clans eventually sought to enter the 

locally operating Salafi-jihadist groups in order to ensure their own security and that of their relatives. Others determined to retaliate, but unable to do so on their 

own, joined jihadist groups in order to have the support of similarly-minded comrades-in-arms.68 Many 

were determined to retaliate to avenge the death of 

a relative or close person, or a personal humiliation 

such as rape. As these individuals were only able to 

retaliate through self-sacrifice in the form of a suicide 

terrorist attack, they instead turned to religion to rationalize what they came to consider an act of martyrdom. Jihadization therefore constituted part of their 

reconciliation with the idea of retaliation by means of 

self-sacrifice.69 Since the early-2000s, many disenfranchised North Caucasians have sought membership in 

jihadist groups, which for them constitutes the sole 
21

challenger to the unpopular local regimes (which had 

brought about the eradication of secular political opposition in the North Caucasus), and an unparalleled 

anti-establishment force.70 Some individuals have 

joined jihadist groups to protest social injustice or the 

erosion of traditionalist values.71 Others, already radicalized by a previous personal trigger—such as abuse, 

a perception of injustice, or humiliation—turned to 

Salafi-jihadism to justify their violent mobilization in 

their own eyes.72 Triggered by an act of offense and 

hoping to retaliate, they underwent already-violent 

mobilization without being initially influenced by 

Salafi-jihadism. Over time, having entered jihadist 

groups, most of these individuals came to truly believe and self-identify with their group’s ideology—in 

this case, the ideology of Salafi-jihadism.73

In addition, Ratelle notes that, despite numerous 

allegations by the proponents of the global jihadism 

approach, there is no solid evidence of the Chechen 

or North Caucasian’s alliance with al-Qaeda, their 

participation in Taliban groups in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, or other such groups.74 While the role in the 

Chechen insurgency’s jihadization in the late-1990s 

played by Arabs who previously participated in the 

Russo-Afghan War is disputed,75 there is a widespread 

consensus that the North Caucasus has not had foreign fighters on its soil in recent years.76 The argument that the jihadization of the Chechen and North 

Caucasian insurgencies was driven by religious fervor 

or the appeal of Salafi-jihadist doctrine has also been 

challenged as unsubstantiated.77 In keeping with the 

prevalent scholarship on non-religious and personal 

grievance-based sources of jihadist radicalization, jihadization is rather explained as a process preceded 

by personal radicalization.78
22

Grievance.

The remaining two approaches examine the regional insurgency as essentially a homegrown phenomenon.79 Rather than pointing to ideological factors or exogenous influences, the proponents of this 

approach have pointed to grievance as the principal 

cause of violent mobilization in the North Caucasus.80

Grievance is a concept that has many meanings, and is 

applied differently by various scholars. Some authors 

examining the causes of the First Chechen War have 

pointed to grievance as drawing on the chosen trauma 

of the Stalin-era deportation of the Chechen people in 

1944, which paved the way for a sense of shame and 

injustice shared by Chechens across generations. Once 

the regime relented and the self-declared Chechen 

state faced invasion by Russia, violent mobilization 

was facilitated by the collective sense of shame and injustice felt by the Chechens.81 In a similar vein, Valery 

Tishkov, Brian Glyn Williams, and Aurélie Campana 

point to the grievance-centered concepts of collective 

memory and chosen trauma to explain the ease of the 

Chechens’ violent mobilization on the eve of, and during the course of, the First Chechen War.82 Nevertheless, as Cristoph Zürcher has observed in relation to 

other North Caucasian ethnic groups that were also 

deported but chose not to rebel (Karachay-Balkars and 

Ingush), chosen trauma and collective memory alone 

barely account for violent mobilization.83 According to 

this line of reasoning, it is not ethnicity that generates 

conflict, but conflict that leads to the “ethnification” of 

identity. The latter includes the (re)construction of ethno-nationalist narratives centered on past grievances 

and injustices, with the “ethnic enemy” regarded as 

the source of such suffering. Against this background, 

the antithesis of grievance is greed, which may be 
23

defined as the motivation to acquire material benefits. 

Greed appears to be a rather minor cause of violent 

mobilization due to the absence of coveted resources 

in much of the North Caucasus.84

Seen from a different perspective, the grievancecentered approach posits that the brutality and impunity of federal and local security personnel, specifically 

military and police forces, have radicalized masses of 

North Caucasians. On the pretext of the “war against 

terrorism,” local siloviki have conducted extrajudicial 

targeting of pious Muslims—who they have singled 

out as the insurgents’ alleged sympathizers—as well 

as randomly selected youth. In addition, local police 

officers have sought to profit from counterterrorist 

campaigns. For example, imprisoning and torturing 

individuals in order to obtain confessions about their 

involvement in terrorist activity has enabled local police to refine their statistics, accelerate their careers, 

and receive funding from the federal budget on the 

pretext of successfully combating terrorism.85 Other 

security officials (the siloviki) have resorted to kidnapping, and then demanding ransom money for their 

release.86

Russian and foreign human rights organizations 

have routinely reported on the excessive use of brutal interrogation techniques, abuse, and torture.87 According to an estimate by Sapiyat Magomedova, a 

prominent Dagestani lawyer and human rights activist, only around 10 percent of all Dagestani “terrorists” 

or their supporters are incarcerated on substantiated 

grounds.88 Indeed, the largely indiscriminate violence 

employed by the local and federal siloviki since the 

early-2000s has antagonized a segment of the North 

Caucasian population, of which hundreds and possibly even thousands of individuals have later joined 

local Salafi-jihadist groups. This, in turn, has created 
24

a vicious cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation, 

with intelligence and security officials carrying out 

retributive attacks on actual or alleged insurgents and 

their alleged sympathizers. In keeping with the general scholarship, indiscriminate violence is believed 

to be conducive to violent mobilization in the North 

Caucasus. 

Supported by recent ethnographic research, the 

grievance-centered approach has incorporated a novel perspective based on the prevalence of semi-archaic 

social codes in the eastern North Caucasus.89 Pioneered 

by the present author, Huseyn Aliyev, and Jean-François Ratelle, this grievance-centered approach is centered on the crucial role that blood revenge plays as 

an apolitical source of violent mobilization. Against 

the background of the surviving code of retaliation, 

the clan-based organization of local societies has often resulted in the mobilization of several individuals, rather than just one, to retaliate following an offense.90 Within this novel school of thought, grievance 

is approached as a systematized sociocultural process 

guided by the honor-centered notions of offense, 

shame, and retaliation. With the custom of blood revenge still intact in Chechnya, Ingushetia, and, to an 

extent, also in Dagestan, many local men who suffered 

immense humiliation and injury at the hands of siloviki never reconciled with these offenses. Driven by the 

honor-centered custom of blood revenge, these men 

seek to retaliate against the offenders, sometimes disregarding the costs of such retaliation to themselves 

or their families.91 Those knowledgeable of the identities of the offenders have often chosen to retaliate on 

their own without joining jihadist groups. Those who 

lack such knowledge or who are otherwise unable 

to exact revenge on their own have typically joined 

jihadist groups. As a rule, those with knowledge of 
25

the actual culprit of an offense have sought to disengage immediately following the act of retaliation. On 

the other hand, those who have joined jihadist groups 

have usually been subjected to strong Salafi-jihadist 

indoctrination and are unwilling or unable to leave.92 

Social Injustice, Unpopular Elites, and the Erosion 

of Traditionalist Values.

The third approach focuses on the background 

causes of violent mobilization. Local elites, which are 

not elected but are appointed by the Kremlin, and 

thus are strictly pro-Moscow, are frequently unpopular with residents and as such, are often identified 

as a major point of contention.93 Moscow-backed local authorities—infamous for their impunity, corruption, and incompetence—have particularly alienated 

local populations. Numerous studies have pointed to 

unpopular elites, corruption, and unemployment as 

a breeding ground of terrorism in the North Caucasus.94 As Ronald Dannreuther and Luke March have 

observed, Moscow’s granting to North Caucasian 

autonomous republics under local strongmen’s autocratic rule for the sake of pacifying the region: 

comes with dangers of increasing corruption and poor 

governance . . . driving opposition underground and 

potentially reigniting terrorist campaigns beyond the 

region.95

Against the background of high unemployment, a 

generation of disenfranchised youth has emerged in 

the North Caucasus. Without a peaceful and secular 

opposition to the local pro-Moscow regimes and in 

the face of grim personal prospects, Salafi-jihadism 

has asserted itself in the North Caucasus as a salient 
26

anti-establishment ideology, as observed elsewhere in 

the Muslim world.96 Importantly, the appeal of Salafijihadism has been strong among the educated and 

middle-class North Caucasians.97

In addition to the preceding discussion, Ratelle 

and the present author have pointed to the rejection 

of “spoiled morals”—such as: the “frivolous” behavior of local women, the disappearance of customary 

law-centered social practices, lack of respect toward 

the elderly, drug addiction, and homosexuality, 

among others—as an important cognitive opening for 

the Dagestani youth to mobilize.98 Many individuals 

in socially conservative Dagestan and other parts of 

the North Caucasus have accused local elites of the 

ongoing decline of Dagestan’s age-old patriarchal 

values, drawing on Islam and local tradition. This has 

sharpened a sense of social injustice among the local 

population; and while this notion rarely pushes individuals to violent mobilization, it nevertheless makes 

them more receptive to anti-establishment sentiments. 

Against this background, Salafi-jihadism appears to 

have successfully branded itself as the defender of 

traditionalist values among a segment of Dagestani 

youth.99

SOURCES OF PRO-INSURGENT SUPPORT

Funding.

Against the impressive background of scholarship 

on the causes of violent mobilization in the North Caucasus, our knowledge is fragmented as to the sources 

of pro-insurgent support. In terms of funding, those 

in favor of viewing the North Caucasus insurgency 

as an imported phenomenon have tended to link it to 

outside sources of funding, particularly to al-Qaeda. 
27

General consensus maintains that, while external organizations may have sponsored some jihadist groups 

since the early-2000s, particularly in Chechnya, this 

trend has faded away. Indeed, a number of observers have claimed that some Salafi-dominated charity 

organizations in the West and Middle East funneled 

funds to jihadist organizations, including those in the 

North Caucasus.100

Robert Schaefer has asserted that Chechnya-based 

pro-Salafi groups received funds directly from Saudi 

Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar during the interwar period.101 In a similar vein, Charlotte Hille has 

claimed that Chechen jihadists were financially aided by Saudi Arabia during the First Chechen War.102

Chechen warlords themselves have lamented the lack 

of interest and financing from the outside, including 

other parts of the Muslim world. In a 2004 interview, 

Shamil Basayev asserted that he was “ashamed of the 

Muslims. During the three years since September 11, 

nobody at all has helped us.”103 Most have admitted 

that the onset of the Iraq War in 2003 brought about 

an abrupt end to the financing of Chechen jihadists 

from various Salafi funds and organizations. Reuven 

Paz, director of the Project for the Research of Islamist 

Movements (PRISM), summarized this perspective 

through his assertion that:

the main turning point was in 2003 with the start of the 

Iraqi Jihadi insurgency. The focus on Iraq as an alternative arena for Afghanistan, caused al-Qaeda to lose 

interest in the Chechen struggle, and in Russia as a 

significant target. . . . Chechnya had become marginal 

in al-Qaeda’s strategy.104

Today, only the staunchest proponents of the 

Chechen and North Caucasian insurgencies being 
28

an offspring of the global jihadist movement have 

claimed that they continue to receive money from the 

Middle East. In 2015, when reflecting on Russia’s deteriorating relations with the United States, Putin even 

went so far as to claim that Chechen insurgents in the 

early-2000s received support from the United States.105

Such allegations generally lack solid ground, such as 

Hahn’s recent assertion that al-Qaeda finances the 

CE.106 Hahn has pointed to two incidents to support 

his claim, the first of which was the May 2011 arrest in 

Prague by Czech police of eight North Caucasians suspected of plotting attacks in the North Caucasus. The 

second incident occurred when a statement of support 

by Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi—a prominent Salafijihadist author of Jordanian-Palestinian origin, also 

known as Essam Muhammad Tahir al-Barqawi—was 

uploaded onto the North Caucasus insurgency websites. Hahn posited that such statements were proof of 

al-Qaeda’s support for the North Caucasian jihadists, 

because the websites on which these statements were 

posted are used to raise money.

Statements of mutual support made by jihadists 

from various parts of the world are a routine practice 

often used to boost a sense of solidarity without entailing actual support. According to Hahn, the Czech 

police accused the arrested individuals of securing 

external financing for the North Caucasian jihadists, 

as reported by the Russian English-language news 

portal Life.ru. This information was soon negated by 

Robert Šlachta, head of the Czech special police force 

that carried out the arrest. According to Šlachta, the 

arrested individuals supposedly procured false IDs, 

weapons, and explosives for North Caucasian jihadists; however, no ties between the arrested individuals 

and al-Qaeda or external funding were discovered.107
29

Codes of Hospitality and Silence.

Recent ethnographic studies have supported the 

dominant perspective that the North Caucasian jihadists are cut off from external funding. In order to survive, individual jihadist groups must acquire funding 

on their own. Largely confined to mountainous passes, Chechen jihadists are extremely limited in terms 

of their contacts with the outside world. They usually 

rely on several hundred supporters—driven by either 

the local code of hospitality or by sympathies toward 

the insurgents—to provide supplies of food, warm 

clothes, medicine, weapons, and ammunition.108

In contrast to Dagestani jihadists, Chechens exercise no control on the ground. With increased incumbent control and with the insurgents’ supporters subjected to harsh reprisals, the insurgents are 

unable to visit cities, go shopping, spend money, or 

perform other routine tasks.109 In Dagestan, with its 

predominantly urban guerilla warfare, the insurgents’ 

situation is easier than in Chechnya. While Chechen 

insurgents rely on a shrinking network of local supporters to obtain their basic needs, Dagestani local jihadi groups have rather diversified sources of financing. The present author and Akhmet Yarlykapov have 

shown that zakat—or the “money for jihad”—that is 

gathered both voluntarily and involuntarily provide 

Dagestani jihadists with a principal source of income. 

Storeowners are blackmailed into regularly paying 

money or face destruction of their businesses or death. 

Jihadists occasionally kidnap individuals and request 

ransom money to release them, or otherwise engage in 

economic criminal activities.110
30

Salafi-sympathizers both within and outside 

Dagestan also provide funding to local jihadi groups.

According to a recent survey, 20 percent of Dagestani 

youth self-identify as “moderate” Salafis.111 The actual 

number of Salafi-jihadists is not known, but they may 

form an important minority within Dagestan’s Salafi 

community. Indiscriminate violence deployed by local siloviki against Salafis may push some of them to 

provide more tangible support to jihadists, apart from 

violent mobilization.112

An important source of pro-insurgent support, unrelated to theological convictions and political stances, is identified in recent work by the present author 

and Aliyev. The persistence of the sociocultural codes 

of hospitality and silence prompts some of the local 

population to provide support to the insurgents and 

to avoid collaboration with the authorities. In fact, 

these two codes, part of the customary law (adat) of 

the North Caucasian people, are enshrined in the regional tradition. The code of silence dictates that highlanders avoid collaboration with the authorities, including police, even if they themselves are in conflict 

with the local insurgents. In order not to “lose face” in 

the eyes of fellow villagers, locals are expected to provide support to insurgents as insiders—a custom that 

is prevalent particularly in socially conservative rural 

areas. In theory, support is to be provided regardless 

of reprisals or the political and religious views held 

by the locals. In the face of increasing reprisals by the 

authorities, it is difficult for the locals to find the motivation to provide such support. Nevertheless, this 

honor-bound support still constitutes an important 

source of pro-insurgent support that is difficult to 

trace and penalize.113
31

THE NORTH CAUCASIAN INSURGENCY

Organization.

While the Chechen insurgency experienced a 

sharp transition from ethno-nationalist separatism to 

a jihadist movement in the 2000s,114 the insurgency in 

the rest of the North Caucasus has been dominated 

by Salafi-jihadist rhetoric from its very onset. With 

the exception of a segment of individual avengers who seek to retaliate on their own, and thereby 

avoid joining insurgent groups, the North Caucasus 

insurgency is overwhelmingly jihadi and consists of 

dozens of autonomous groups, numbering from five 

to 12 active members each. These jihadist groups are 

formally subordinated to a vilayat—or province—of 

which there are currently four: the vilayats of Nokhchichö or Chechnya, of Galgaychö or Ingushetia, 

of Dagestan, and of Kabarda-Balkaria-Karachay.115

These vilayats are governed by naibs (governors; amir’s 

deputies), who are formally appointed by the amir

of the CE. Although naibs swear loyalty to the amir, 

the amir’s control on the ground is, in reality, very 

limited.116

Across the North Caucasus, the term jamaat is used 

to designate local jihadi groups. In practice, subordination of one jihadi group to another is quite formal. Like jihadi groups operating in other parts of the 

world, the CE can be viewed as a brand or a franchise 

representing a horizontal network of loosely organized jihadi groups. Jamaats are highly autonomous 

and are ruled by individual leaders, or amirs, and

operate in distinct areas or sectors for which they are 

responsible.117 These jihadist groups are self-sufficient 

in terms of their recruitment and funding,118 and they 
32

operate in isolation of each other, which on the one 

hand, reduces their overall effectiveness, and on the 

other hand, reduces the risk of being discovered, infiltrated, and liquidated. In spite of their relative isolation, these jihadi groups are bound together by their 

common ideology of Salafi-jihadism.119 

Violence.

In the past, North Caucasian insurgencies occurred 

episodically in controlled small pockets of land. Due to 

increasingly fierce counterinsurgency operations and 

the incumbent’s control on the ground, jamaats have 

been forced, however, to change their modes of organization and operation. Having become more loosely 

organized, jihadist groups mainly target security personnel—both federal and local—and local authorities 

within the region, as well as civilian targets outside 

the region in Russia proper. This phenomenon can be 

explained by the jihadists’ efforts not to alienate local 

populations, who serve as current and potential supporters. In fact, civilians who have been killed as a result of insurgent attacks have mostly been bystanders 

and not the direct target of the attack itself.120

Jihadists have increasingly resorted to improvised 

explosive devices and bombing of infrastructure and 

mass transportation—particularly trains, subway 

stations, and airports.121 Pro-regime clergy are sometimes attacked by these groups, with the assassination 

in Dagestan of the reputed Sufi sheikh Said Afandi 

Chirkeisky in August 2012 being perhaps the most 

well-known example. Since 2010, insurgents have periodically attacked casinos, liquor stores, and brothels—accusing them of being sources of sin. Insurgents 

nevertheless have usually sought to avoid killing 
33

local people during such attacks.122 Suicide attacks 

have also been used, and are viewed as the jihadists’ most feared and lethal method. The bombings 

in the Moscow subway stations and international airport during 2010–2011 claimed the lives of dozens of 

civilians. 

Urban vs. Rural Guerillas. 

Since 2007, most insurgent activity has been confined to the main urban areas and some mountainous 

areas of Dagestan, a number of mountainous areas of 

Chechnya and Ingushetia, and to some urban areas of 

Kabardino-Balkaria.123 In Dagestan, the ongoing guerilla warfare is predominantly urban in terms of the 

intensity of insurgent violence. Makhachkala, Kizlyar, 

and Khasavyurt have been among the most frequented targets of insurgent violence in the Caspian republic. Rural areas, particularly those to the east of the 

capital city and in central Dagestan, have rather been 

used by insurgent groups as a safe haven—a situation 

that is being changed due to the incumbent forces’ 

recent consolidated thrust into these areas. Since the 

early-2010s, the cities of southern Dagestan, followed 

by some wooded mountainous areas, have also been 

hit by insurgent violence. In Ingushetia and Dagestan, 

the borderland areas have witnessed the most violence, although insurgent groups have attacked other 

areas as well. The flatlands of northern Chechnya and 

the area to the north of the Terek River have, however, 

been spared of the conflict. In Kabardino-Balkaria, the 

capital city of Nalchik, along with some neighboring 

towns, has dominated the landscape of the local insurgency, although insurgent groups have also frequently attacked targets in the heavily mountainous south, 
34

as well as some central and northern areas of the republic.124 In recent years, Dagestan has been the leader 

of the regional insurgency, followed by Chechnya 

and Ingushetia, with Kabardino-Balkaria the republic 

being least affected by conflict. 
35

II. CHECHNYA 2000–2010: A MODEL 

COUNTERINSURGENCY?

SELECTIVE TARGETING

By the early-2000s, the Russian army had largely 

failed to annihilate the Chechen insurgency. On the 

one hand, the Russian army had broken the backbone 

of the Chechen resistance in the fierce fighting in and 

around Grozny at the end of 1999 and beginning of 

2000, during which time hundreds of Chechen insurgents perished along with many gifted military commanders.125 By that time, the Russian army had also 

gained control on the ground, at least during the day. 

Although Chechen insurgent groups were capable 

of dealing sensitive blows to the Russian military 

across the republic, Chechen insurgents were largely 

based in the wooded mountainous areas of central 

and southern Chechnya, and endured harsh winters, 

scarce food, and little contact with the outside world. 

On the other hand, the Russian military continued 

to struggle to localize and destroy the remaining insurgent groups. A Russian combat general reported 

from Chechnya, as late as 2004, that the federal troops 

were “so busy just trying to ensure their own security that they almost never can counter the resurgent 

guerrillas.”126

The principal cause of the Russian military’s failure was its excessive use of indiscriminate violence, 

which resulted from its lack of information about the 

insurgents and their social networks. Instead of reducing insurgent violence, it multiplied it, as masses of 

aggrieved Chechens—even those with no prior wish 

to do so—sought to join insurgent groups in order to 

retaliate. 
36

It was the gradual deployment of the kadyrovtsy in 

combat as part of Moscow’s Chechenization strategy 

that changed the course of the protracted war. There 

were various reasons for Chechens to join the paramilitary units subordinated directly to the Kadyrov 

family—Moscow’s main proxy in the troublesome 

republic.127 Having made enemies among the jihadistdominated insurgency in previous years, some former fighters—who were predominantly nationalistminded—sought to defect to the pro-Russian side in 

order to settle a score with their enemies and their 

families. Others joined the kadyrovtsy units because 

of pressure put on them by Russian authorities and 

their Chechen proxies. In fact, in the early-2000s, 

relatives of renowned Chechen insurgent commanders were hijacked en masse. The commanders were 

forced to either capitulate, defect, or face the killing 

of their relatives.128 Many (predominantly non-Salafiminded) commanders eventually sought to defect in 

order to save the lives of their loved ones, and they 

usually brought their foot soldiers, fellow clan members, or neighbors with them. Others joined either the 

kadyrovtsy or Chechnya’s newly formed pro-Moscow 

government institutions because they had been promised high-ranking positions and security by Akhmad 

Kadyrov, the head of the pro-Moscow Chechen government whom they had known previously. In addition to experienced veterans, Chechen youth also 

joined the kadyrovtsy as they sought to obtain security 

for themselves and members of their families against 

the background of increasingly intense and largely indiscriminate violence perpetrated by Russian 

troops.129 Once deployed in combat against insurgents 

or in raids against the insurgents’ relatives, these new 

recruits became “bound by blood” to the Kadyrov 
37

family. As the killing of an insurgent or his relative 

by a pro-Moscow Chechen paramilitary troop initiated a blood feud among the families involved, the 

kadyrovtsy had no way out but to remain committed to 

their new leader, whatever the recruits’ prior political 

convictions.130

The deployment of the kadyrovtsy from among former insurgents was crucial for a number of reasons. 

First, having direct knowledge of the insurgents’ 

modes of organization and operation—including their 

identities, mountainous hideouts, and networks—

the former insurgents in the ranks of the kadyrovtsy

paramilitaries were able to deploy selective violence 

against their former comrades-in-arms. Familiar with 

the insurgents’ local social networks, the kadyrovtsy

were much more effective in tracing the sources of 

pro-insurgent support among the local population 

than the Russian troops were. As a result, mop-up 

operations—known as zachistkas—carried out by the 

kadyrovtsy have been much more effective than those 

carried out by Russian troops. Supported by Russian 

troops as a backup force, the kadyrovtsy conducted 

forced disappearances of the insurgents’ supporters 

and relatives.131 In fact, in order to increase control on 

the ground, Russian military garrisons were established near Chechen villages that were considered to 

be critical in terms of insurgent violence and where the 

kadyrovtsy had also established permanent bases.132 In 

some areas, zachistkas became a continuous phenomenon together with routine forced disappearances.133

As a result, during the peak of the kadyrovtsy-led raids 

and zachistkas of the mid-2000s, the leading Russian 

human rights organization, Memorial, reported the 

discovery of around 50 mass graves containing the 

bodies of hundreds of Chechens, most of them with 
38

traces of severe injuries and bodily mutilation.134 During the period 1999–2004, Memorial recorded 2,090 

cases of such forced disappearances, which were attributed to both the Russian army and the kadyrovtsy.

135 Over the years, the kadyrovtsy have become a 

much-feared force in Chechnya, which—in contrast to 

Russian troops—have usually applied selective violence by directly targeting insurgents and their supporters. Greater knowledge and understanding of the 

insurgents and their whereabouts also facilitated the 

deployment of artillery, helicopters, and armored vehicles much more effectively than before. Over time, 

this has contributed to the dramatic decline of insurgent activity in Chechnya. 

Due to the isolation of the remaining groups of 

Chechen insurgents in heavily mountainous areas, 

they have evolved to have no financial requirements 

in order to operate. These Chechen insurgents’ contacts with the outside world have become confined to 

several hundred supporters who help the insurgents 

meet their basic needs. With rare exceptions, these insurgents are no longer able to travel to villages and 

cities to spend their money. This was still possible in 

the 2000s, however, when incumbent control on the 

ground was not well established. To curb the sources 

of insurgent funding, Chechnya’s pro-Moscow government increased control over Chechen diaspora 

communities in Chechnya, Russian cities, and Europe—an important source of funding for Chechen 

insurgents.136

 Chechen authorities have cooperated with Russian intelligence services and Russia’s diplomatic 

representations in European countries, going so far 

as to establish Chechen departments in a number of 

Russian embassies, with the aim of infiltrating and 
39

controlling the work of local Chechen communities. 

According to some sources, Chechens funneling money to Chechnya-based insurgent groups through attachés were targeted in Europe and in the Middle East,137

which gradually led to the reduction of support by 

Chechen community organizations, even those based 

outside of Russia. Concerned about their relatives in 

Chechnya being targeted in acts of retribution, many 

Chechens have sought to distance themselves from 

supporting Chechen insurgents back home or even 

expressing critical views of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow 

government in general and the Kadyrov family in 

particular.138

COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT

Since the early-2000s, Chechnya has largely found 

itself outside of Russia’s legal space. Extrajudicial executions, torture, and abuse—including sexual abuse—

have become widespread phenomena, engulfing the 

activities of both Russian troops and their Chechen 

allies.139 Although the scale of human rights violations 

has lessened in recent years, many Chechens—aware 

of the increasingly high cost of pro-insurgent support 

and violent mobilization—have sought to stay away 

from insurgency and insurgency-related violence. 

Since the early-2000s, and particularly in the mid2000s, Chechen authorities have deployed the principle of collective punishment against insurgents’ 

relatives. Individuals joining insurgent groups should 

have anticipated that their allegiance to such groups 

would scarcely go unnoticed and that their relatives 

would be held accountable for their membership. In 

the 2000s, the kadyrovtsy routinely killed the relatives 

of insurgents, with such killings taking the form of 

forced disappearances described in detail in the previ-
40

ous section of this monograph. Having obtained information on the local youth who had allegedly joined an 

insurgent group, armored vehicles carrying masked 

kadyrovtsy—often aided by Russian troops—would 

enter a village and then kidnap the youth’s relative 

or relatives. The authorities would usually refuse to 

communicate with the abducted man’s relatives and 

would threaten to capture another male from the same 

family if the captured individual chose to complain. 

With the kadyrovtsy enjoying impunity in Chechen and 

federal courts, most Chechen families chose to remain 

silent on the matter. The abducted individual would 

either disappear without a trace or be found later in 

either a personal or a mass grave, with the authorities 

labeling it as the liquidation of an insurgent. 

Aware of the uproar it could cause, Grozny has 

been careful never to openly endorse or confirm the 

tactical application of the principle of collective guilt. 

The pro-Moscow Chechen authorities on multiple occasions have publicly stated that some form of co-responsibility was indispensable for the relatives of insurgents. They have, however, usually avoided being 

explicit about using lethal violence against insurgents’ 

relatives. For example, Ramzan Kadyrov asserted in 

a 2009 interview that it was justifiable for the incumbent forces to use the relatives of insurgents as human shields during counterinsurgency operations.140

In a 2010 speech, Kadyrov issued an explicit warning 

to insurgents’ relatives, stating that, “having allowed 

such filth to go to the woods [to join the insurgency], 

those fathers and brothers should know that we will 

hold them to accountable.”141 Kadyrov and his closest associates continued to make similar statements in 

subsequent years.142

Against the backdrop of intense reprisals, many 

Chechens have sought to either postpone retalia-
41

tion—an important trigger of violent mobilization—

or to abandon it outright in order not to expose their 

families to excessive violence. In a similar vein, many 

Chechens, supportive of the jihadists, have chosen to 

stay away from them in order to survive. Since the late2000s and particularly since the 2010s, the decreasing 

support for insurgents and violent mobilization has 

led Chechen authorities to prefer non-lethal means of 

collective punishment—such as burning the houses 

of incriminated insurgents—over lethal means.143 Reports nevertheless show that killings, particularly in 

the form of forced disappearances, are still executed 

by Chechnya’s pro-Moscow authorities.144

Collective punishment of insurgents’ relatives has 

proven to be an effective deterrent in Chechnya.145

Concerned about the survival of their relatives, many 

insurgents have capitulated or defected, which in turn 

has led to the fragmentation of the insurgency from 

within. At the same time, some would-be insurgents 

have chosen to refrain from violent mobilization in 

general and joining jamaats in particular.146 Ekaterina 

Sokirianskaya, the International Crisis Group’s expert 

on the North Caucasus, has asserted that, “due to the 

horrible dictatorship [in Chechnya] and methods of 

collective punishment, the Chechens have postponed 

[the] blood feud and their protest to better times, 

which is impossible today. Still, this is a frozen situation, not a [sustainable] solution [to the conflict].”147

Even against the background of fierce reprisals, 

dozens of Chechens—driven by the code of honor—

have sought to mobilize in order to avenge the wrongs 

inflicted upon themselves or their relatives by the 

kadyrovtsy.

148 Importantly, however, retaliation has 

been increasingly carried out by individual avengers on their own without joining insurgent groups, 
42

although a number of recruits have still sought to join 

these groups.149 There are a number of possible explanations for this phenomenon: first, facing an intense 

manhunt, Chechen jamaats have become increasingly 

difficult to contact and approach. Second, unlike in 

previous years, jamaats have become largely incapable 

of providing prospective insurgents with weapons, 

ammunition, or the technical aid needed to exact revenge. Third, while many individual avengers have 

sought to target actual culprits of previous grievances, 

the Salafi-jihadist jamaats have gradually come to develop a novel and ideologically influenced agenda. 

The jamaats’ understanding of their enemy and their 

targets is thus considerably broader than in the case of 

most individual avengers. Prospective avengers have 

therefore sought to retaliate on their own and, on some 

occasions, have used networks of relatives for retaliation. According to a Chechen political scientist, this 

explains Chechen insurgents’ lack of prior knowledge 

of episodic, and often suicidal, attacks carried out by 

individual Chechens avengers.150 A suicide bombing 

in downtown Grozny in October 2014 that claimed 

the lives of five kadyrovtsy is attributed to individual 

avengers.151

Although it has increased the cost of violent mobilization and pro-insurgent support, collective punishment has still not deterred hundreds of Chechens 

from providing support to local insurgent groups. In 

fact, at least 100 insurgents are believed to be currently 

hiding in Chechnya’s mountains.152 Confined to some 

densely wooded areas, these groups are isolated from 

the rest of the world due to the increasing ground control exercised by the kadyrovtsy. Given the conditions 

on the ground, this small but significant force would 

not be able to exist without local support. According 
43

to former insurgents, the local code of hospitality, together with personal or political sympathies, are what 

still motivate hundreds of locals to provide support to 

the Chechen insurgents, even in the face of daunting 

odds and risks.153

INFILTRATION AND DECAPITATION

During the 2000s, counterinsurgents made frequent 

use of infiltration and decapitation tactics in Chechnya 

as a means of destroying the insurgents’ leadership 

and undermining the insurgent groups from within. 

Perhaps the most well-known case is the liquidation 

of Shamil Basayev by a Russian security service—Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB)—agent in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo in July 2006. According to a 

Russian media outlet, having penetrated the jihadists’ 

ranks:

an FSB agent infiltrated Basayev’s retinue and tipped 

off his superiors that Basayev had a KamAZ truck 

with three secret caches of explosives, arms and ammunition . . . An FSB agent was next to Basayev several hours before the blast and filmed him on his mobile 

phone camera, it said.154

It is likely that the agent was among those unnamed 

service members decorated by Putin for Basayev’s 

killing the same year.155 A similar assassination took 

place in March 2002, when a Dagestani agent hired by 

the FSB gained the trust of amir Khattab, an infamous 

Saudi-born jihadist, and the most well-known “Arab 

Afghan” in Chechnya. Serving as a messenger from 

Khattab’s Saudi Arabia-based mother and Khattab 

himself, he gave the jihadist leader a poisoned letter 

that was coated with “a fast-acting nerve agent, pos-
44

sibly sarin or a derivative.”156 Similarly, a group of 

intelligence service agents entered and disrupted the 

group of another infamous Chechen jihadist, Salman 

Raduyev, in March 2000.157 According to Anna Politkovskaya, the late reputed journalist who reported for 

the liberal Russian daily newspaper Novaya Gazeta, 

Khanpasha Terkipayev—a Chechen mole in the service of the Russian intelligence service—infiltrated the 

Chechen commando that seized the building of the 

Dubrovka theater in October 2002.158

Cognizant of the support provided by some of 

the local population to the insurgents, Russian intelligence service agents, aided by the kadyrovtsy, forced 

Chechen villagers to supply insurgents with poisoned 

food.159 On some occasions, agents camouflaged as 

local villagers were used for this task. According to 

an FSB officer, in 2010 alone, more than 17 insurgents 

lost their lives due to poisoned food provided by locals.160 Important jihadist leaders such as: Yasir Amat, 

Magarbi Temiraliyev, and Abubakar Pashayev, as 

well as their fellow fighters, were killed by consuming poisoned food, or suffered grave injuries from 

which they never recovered. Even the then-leader of 

the CE, Dokka Umarov, suffered greatly from injuries 

caused by poisoned food, having acquired a number 

of serious diseases that most likely led to his death in 

2013. According to an FSB officer, as “tracing down 

and destroying fighters in the mountains is extremely 

difficult,” operations involving poisoned food and 

drawing on the local population’s code of hospitalitycentered support, have continued, and have become 

increasingly widespread since 2009.161

The decapitation of Chechen insurgent leadership 

failed to lead to their ultimate decline, as elsewhere 

in the world. This infiltration, particularly the liquida-
45

tion of dozens of Chechen fighters, including several 

gifted veterans and commanders, has nevertheless 

inflicted a heavy toll on them. While first-hand data 

on the impact of infiltration and decapitation tactics 

on the organization and operation of affected Chechen 

jamaats is lacking, the overall decline in insurgent activity in the sectors previously hit by infiltrations and 

decapitations speaks to the debilitation and paralysis 

of the jamaats.

47

III. COUNTERINSURGENCY

SELECTIVE TARGETING

As early as 2012, the Russian authorities were utilizing a number of tactical innovations, particularly in 

Dagestan, as the crucial epicenter of the regional insurgency, to facilitate the deployment of selective violence—meaning violence aimed against the insurgents 

and their supporters. Most importantly, elite counterinsurgency forces have been increasingly deployed in 

combat across the North Caucasus.162 For example, the 

Special Rapid Response Units (SOBR) of the Russian 

Ministry of the Interior have featured prominently in 

the counterterrorist and counterinsurgent operations 

conducted in the North Caucasus, and particularly in 

Dagestan. On the republican level, the Special Purpose 

Mobility Units (OMON) falling under the jurisdiction 

of the local branches of the Ministry of Interior have 

been expanded since 2010 to take on the task of combating jihadists.163 Counterinsurgency forces have also 

been aided by the FSB, which has turned the North 

Caucasus into its principal site of work.164

The need to deploy elite counterinsurgency units 

became apparent on the eve of the Winter Olympic 

Games in the southern city of Sochi, situated in the 

Kranosdar Province just hundreds of miles away from 

the battlefield. Over the previous decade, most fighting was done by the various detachments of the republican branches of the Ministry of Interior, specializing 

in counterterrorism, and the local police.165 Known for 

their incompetence, corruption, and nepotism, the republican police have proved to be poor counterinsurgents, but brutal torturers.166 For example, Dagestani 

police have collaborated on various occasions with 
48

the insurgents over economic issues, such as control 

over local businesses.167 There is evidence of some 

Dagestani jamaats having morphed into organized 

crime groups with excessive ties to district and even 

republican authorities—including police officers, who 

are usually intertwined with civil authorities.168 Due 

to the salience of kinship ties in North Caucasian society, local police have on various occasions warned, 

and even refused to attack, their relatives in the ranks 

of jihadist groups of forthcoming operations.169 In 

Dagestan, where unemployment among youth has 

been particularly high, many have sought to join the 

police by bribing the authorities.170 When admitted, 

police officers have sought to regain, and even multiply, their investment instead of risking their lives in 

combat. They have thus been involved in abductions, 

racketeering, and the targeting of alleged jihadists and 

their supporters for the sake of improving their record. In addition, some police officers have also been 

largely unwilling to engage in violent encounters with 

the insurgents, preferring less violent and more beneficial activities instead. Some local police units also 

lack proper training to fight insurgents.171

The deployment of elite counterinsurgency forces 

has partially replaced local police units and has helped 

solve a number of problems. Being properly trained 

and lacking local attachments, these elite units have 

proven to be a much-more-effective counterinsurgency force than local police units.172 Unlike local police, 

elite counterinsurgency forces in the North Caucasus 

have proven to be highly determined and unhindered 

by the corruption and nepotism plaguing local police 

units, with counterinsurgency operations being kept 

secret from the local authorities until the very last moment; that has proven to be a major issue, particularly 
49

in Dagestan’s rural areas with highly developed kinship ties.173 In a similar vein, counterinsurgency operations conducted by elite forces have been on the 

offensive in Kabardino-Balkaria and Ingushetia.174

Importantly, Russian authorities have focused on 

breaking the insurgents’ support base, with Ivan Sydoruk acknowledging that federal and local siloviki 

have increasingly targeted those who provide insurgents with various forms of support.175 In contrast 

to previous years, insurgents’ supporters have been 

killed without trial in a series of recent insurgent operations.176 In addition, artillery shelling has frequently 

been used to destroy the homes of insurgents’ supporters during special operations.177 Since 2012, zachistkas

have increasingly been carried out in Dagestan, and 

they have hit not only urban centers, but also mountainous areas with little or no previous control by the 

authorities.178 Importantly, zachistkas carried out by 

elite counterinsurgency forces, made up of both federal and republican troops, have been reminiscent of 

the kadyrovtsy’s mode of operation. Unlike the Russian 

troops that resorted to indiscriminate violence in the 

early-2000s, zachistkas conducted by elite forces have 

drawn on information gathered from intelligence and 

have therefore been much more selective. 

Having learned lessons from the Chechen campaigns, mop-up operations have also been, on the 

whole, more focused and less lethal than in Chechnya. 

Although human rights organizations and journalists 

have decried the destruction of property and looting 

that often accompanied the mop-up operations in 

Dagestan,179 civilians unrelated to the insurgents or 

their supporters are usually evacuated from the affected villages. As a rule, zachistkas are not accompanied 

by large-scale violence, even though—as this section 
50

will later demonstrate—the practice of forced disappearances has still been used. 

Zachistkas, which in many ways have become a 

continuous presence, have led to the decline in the 

scale of insurgent violence in the affected areas since 

the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013. There are 

two main reasons for this decline: (1) the permanent 

deployment of elite counterinsurgency forces backed 

by armored regiments of the Russian army (see below) in the vicinity of insurgent hotbeds;180 and, (2) 

the protracted mop-ups that have disrupted insurgent 

group’s social networks in their areas of operation, resulting in a considerable decrease in supplies of food, 

clothes, and ammunition from the local population.181

Another innovation used by the incumbent has 

been the simultaneous deployment, since late-2012, of 

the Russian army units in Dagestan.182 In this regard, 

the Russian army once again appears to have learned 

lessons from its previous involvement in Chechnya. 

Instead of carrying out mop-ups, Russian troops have 

rather provided backup for elite counterinsurgency 

forces in such operations conducted by the latter. The 

Russian troops have sought to isolate the rural mountainous areas from the main urban centers with the 

aim of separating urban-based insurgent groups from 

their mountainous hideouts. This aims to disable insurgents in urban areas who are under pressure to escape to their at one time rarely disturbed safe havens 

in the mountainous areas of central Dagestan. Communication between rural and urban jamaats has also 

been disrupted and, with the insurgents’ safe havens 

coming under increasing fire, their flexibility has been 

significantly reduced.183
51

COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT

In previous years, attempts to initiate the practice 

of collective punishment—likely initiated by Moscow—took place in the North Caucasus, but eventually failed to gain momentum on the regional level. 

In Kabardino-Balkaria, for example, a group calling 

itself the Black Hawks (Chernie yastreby) was formed 

in 2011. The members of the group issued several videos in which they, with their faces covered by masks, 

called for the Chechnya-style retributive liquidation 

of insurgents’ relatives to be a legitimate means of 

fighting the local insurgency.184 The activists hinted at 

the revival of the custom of blood feud, which was no 

longer being practiced in that part of the Caucasus. 

At the time, many commentators considered this to be 

an FSB-led attempt to intimidate members of the local 

insurgency.185 This initiative eventually faded away, 

possibly because the local population rejected it based 

on their belief that retributive violence against innocent people is an illegitimate form of combat. 

Similar calls have episodically been made by 

some politicians and intellectuals in Dagestan, but to 

no avail thus far. An incident in the village of Khajalmakhi in Dagestan’s Levashi District nevertheless 

constitutes a special exception. In early-2013, an “execution list,” containing the names of 33 local inhabitants—some of them Salafis—allegedly sympathizing 

with or providing support to the local jihadists was 

produced. In March, three people from the list were 

killed under questionable circumstances, and an additional four people from the blacklist were later assassinated. Local and republican police largely distanced 

themselves from the incidents, demonstrating their 

inability or unwillingness to investigate the cases.
52

Despite the huge impacts of the killings on Dagestani 

society, no one was charged, and the killer(s) continue to circumvent justice to this day. With the local 

police refusing to interfere in village affairs, some of 

which even claimed that they had no knowledge of 

the existence of this “execution list,” most families associated with Salafis, jihadists, or their sympathizers 

soon chose to leave the village.186 Similar initiatives 

have also emerged on the federal level in recent years. 

Members of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, unequivocally passed a bill requiring terrorists’ relatives to pay for damages caused by 

attacks in late-2013.187

Collective punishment targeting insurgents’ relatives has increasingly been used by Russian and local authorities in the North Caucasus beyond Chechnya’s borders. While it has been mostly non-lethal in 

Kabardino-Balkaria and Ingushetia, collective punishment has become an increasingly lethal practice 

in Dagestan, where zachistkas have been on the rise. 

Although journalists and representatives of human 

rights organizations have been routinely barred from 

entering villages subjected to mop-up operations, recent reports indicate that counterinsurgency forces 

have adopted the Chechen practice of destroying the 

homes of relatives of Dagestani insurgents. Human 

Rights Watch, for example, reported on the mop-up 

of Gimry—a stronghold of the Dagestani insurgency—by OMON in 2014, along with other villages, and 

pointed to “bombed-out” houses and individuals that 

disappeared by force over the course of often protracted zachistkas.

188 According to a statement by the 

press service of the Dagestani President, in August 

2013 alone, 10 houses were destroyed during mopups in the republic.189 The homes of insurgents’ rela-
53

tives have been blown up across Dagestan, including 

in Buynaksk, Sasitli, and even in the republic’s capital 

city, Makhachkala.190

Most alarmingly, the feared practice of forced disappearances, previously applied in Chechnya, have 

been introduced in Dagestan, with abducted individuals disappearing without a trace. In September 

2014 alone, 19 men from the village of Vremenniy 

disappeared by force during a local mop-up, with the 

whereabouts of most of them remaining unknown.191

The total number of individuals who have disappeared by force is difficult to establish, but estimates 

suggest that up to 100 individuals, predominantly 

young males, have been abducted thus far, most of 

them disappearing without a trace.192 According to 

Novaya Gazeta, Dagestani authorities have adopted a 

new policy of firing insurgents’ relatives in the ranks 

of police and local authorities as a new counterinsurgency tactic.193

INFILTRATION AND DECAPITATION

In the late-2000s, North Caucasian jamaats saw 

their numbers of recruits skyrocket. Determined either to retaliate against wrongs inflicted upon them 

by police or to challenge the corrupt and “spoiled” regime, hundreds of young Dagestanis, Ingush, Kabardins, and Balkarians joined locally operating insurgent groups. Once fairly small and isolated groups of 

fighters with individual knowledge of each other that 

often dated back to pre-war times, jamaats soon grew 

into relatively large groups. With dozens of members each, this once-valued personalized knowledge 

became a rare commodity among the ranks of jihadists, particularly in Dagestan—where recruitment 
54

was particularly high. During that period, insurgency 

became so popular among the local population that 

it included the sons or relatives of high-ranking members of republican elites, as well as reputed athletes, 

former government officials, and highly educated individuals with Ph.D. degrees.194 The rise of members 

of insurgent groups during that period significantly 

contributed to the peak of insurgent attacks observed 

during 2010–2013.

On the other hand, recruitment of this magnitude 

soon pointed to the weakness of the insurgent groups, 

which had been increasingly infiltrated by agents and 

moles.195 A number of recent crackdowns on jihadist groups are indicative of this shift.196 With agents 

planted by siloviki in the ranks of rebel groups, infiltrated jamaats saw their hideouts revealed, fellow jihadists and their supporters targeted, and dozens of 

insurgents lose their lives.197

Hand in hand with the ongoing infiltration of jihadist groups, authorities have also sought to target the 

leadership of jamaats. In Chechnya, one such prominent infiltration that led to decapitation took place in 

early-2013.198 At the time, the installation of a 21-year 

old mole, Islam Temishev, into the group led by the 

prominent and skilled veteran leaders Husayn and 

Muslim Gakayevs—who are considered as Ramzan 

Kadyrov’s personal enemies—resulted in the death of 

12 Chechen fighters, including the rebel brothers. The 

killing of the Gakayev brothers was followed by a period of relative calm as jihadists needed to regroup and 

select new leadership.199 The liquidation in early-2014 

of Tengiz Guketlov in Kabardino-Balkaria, and Artur 

Gatagazhev in Ingushetia, also brought about a lull in 

insurgent activity. The killing in April 2015 of the formal amir of the CE, Aliaskhab Kebekov in his hideout, 
55

as well as the recent killings of a number of Dagestani jihadist commanders, have also been attributed to 

authorities’ implantation of moles in locally operating 

jihadist groups from late-2009 to 2013.200

As in Chechnya, the infiltration of insurgent 

groups and their decapitation have led to the considerable weakening of the targeted groups. First-hand 

data, notoriously difficult to obtain, is lacking for targeted insurgent groups in the North Caucasus. Available figures, however, point to an abrupt decline in 

insurgent activity in those areas over which targeted 

jamaats had claimed responsibility. This could be the 

main cause behind the recent absence of news on insurgent violence in the Kabardino-Balkaria’s Nalchik 

area, where Guketlov was killed; in Ingushetia, where 

Gatagazhev was killed; and in Chechnya’s southeast, 

where the now-deceased Gakayev brothers were operating. As in the case of Chechnya, the decapitated 

groups are likely to have been paralyzed and thus are 

largely incapable of carrying out insurgent or terrorist 

activity for the months to come. 

THE RECRUITMENT OF NORTH CAUCASIANS 

INTO THE SYRIAN CIVIL WAR

Faced with increasingly effective counterinsurgency operations and decreasing local support, the 

leadership of local insurgent groups has had to confront yet another challenge: the growing appeal of the 

Islamic State to local youth. Jihadist groups’ internal 

squabbles,201 collaboration with the authorities, and 

clandestine lives lived permanently on the run have 

alienated frustrated youth from local jihadist groups. 

Some of these youth have been outraged by the Syrian 

regime’s inhumane treatment of their Sunni Muslim 
56

brethren. According to a former Dagestani jihadist 

speaking about the death of a slain fellow jihadist, 

“[h]e went to Syria because he couldn’t stand that 

Assad and his army were killing children.”202 Others 

were inspired by the spectacular advances of the Islamic State, which currently controls large swathes of 

land. As a result, hundreds of Dagestanis and other 

North Caucasians have traveled to the Middle East to 

partake in the local armed conflict. While many appear to have been fascinated by the revolutionary appeal of Salafi-jihadism, others have sought to travel to 

Syria to help their fellow believers.203

According to a recent statement by Alexander 

Bortnikov, head of the FSB, as many as 2,000 Russian 

citizens, most of them presumably of North Caucasian 

origin, may have been involved in the Syrian Civil 

War.204 Importantly, Russian intelligence services 

have done little to prevent North Caucasian youth 

from traveling to Turkey and then on to Syria.205 Some 

commentators have speculated that this is due to Moscow’s motivation to dispose of the disenfranchised and 

frustrated local youth in order to weaken the North 

Caucasus insurgency.206 Indeed, over the course of the 

past 2 years or so, hundreds of prospective recruits 

who would have joined local insurgent groups have 

chosen to travel to Syria, which has weakened local 

jamaats. This has presented local jamaats with a previously unprecedented short supply of new recruits.207

As the exodus of frustrated North Caucasians traveling to Syria would weaken insurgent groups operating in the North Caucasus, Moscow’s lack of concern 

over Russian citizens traveling to Syria is understandable. Some North Caucasian jihadists have expressed 

an interest in returning to their native region once the 

war in the Middle East is over; however, due to high 
57

casualty rates among jihadists fighting in Syria and 

Iraq, only some are likely to make it back to their home 

region. In the end, having married local women, and 

motivated by the quest to carry out a “holy war” elsewhere in the Muslim world, not all North Caucasians 

will eventually seek to return to Russia or be allowed 

to enter Russian territory.208 It is likely that Russia’s interests in the conflict in Syria are at least partly related 

to its desire to have North Caucasian jihadists perish 

far away from their home region.209

The Syrian Civil War, and North Caucasian volunteers’ willingness to participate in it, is an exogenous 

factor over which the Russian authorities have had a 

limited influence. Even so, Russian authorities have 

made effective use of the Syrian jihad to divert recruits 

away from the North Caucasus insurgency. 

LIMITATIONS

Selective Targeting.

The massive deployment of elite counterinsurgency units since 2013 has been instrumental in breaking 

the backbone of many insurgent groups, and these 

units’ ability to apply violence selectively has been crucial to this task. In fact, indiscriminate violence widely 

used by local police units has resulted in thousands 

of frustrated individuals across the North Caucasus, 

many of whom have sought to either retaliate or support insurgents. On the other hand, selective violence 

has been deployed in a more focused way by targeting 

insurgents and their supporters, with non-combatants 

largely left unharmed. 

The deployment of elite counterinsurgency forces 

in combat, however, has not been without its limits. 
58

The first of these limits is that these forces have been 

numerically weak. In Dagestan, for example, despite 

efforts to expand the local OMON units, they still 

number only a few hundred. This is caused partly 

by the locals’ lack of willingness to join these units, 

and partly by strict screening procedures.210 Today, 

OMON has around 20,000 members throughout Russia, with federal OMON—or OMON stemming from 

Russia proper—having been deployed in Dagestan or 

elsewhere in the North Caucasus only episodically. 

Due to the outsiders’ lack of proper knowledge of the 

regional social landscape, North Caucasian OMON 

troops are usually preferred over non-local ones.211

Functioning essentially as a riot police force, the various detachments of OMON consist of members that 

are sufficiently better trained, equipped, and in general more physically and psychologically fit than their 

counterparts in ordinary police units. While OMON 

units are trained to carry out zachistkas in local villages 

and towns,212 their ability to combat insurgents on the 

ground is rather limited. In addition, OMON is widely 

used in other parts of Russia, constituting the regime’s 

major force against the feared threat of popular “color 

revolutions” (the name stemming from the popular 

rebellions in Ukraine and Georgia, called the Orange 

and Rose Revolutions respectively). 

A cross between riot police and a paramilitary force, 

SOBR units are trained specifically to be deployed in 

Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT)-type special operations in direct combat with actual insurgents. As 

the Russian SOBR has only around 5,000 members 

scattered among Russia’s major cities,213 only a limited number of SOBR units may be simultaneously 

deployed in Dagestan or other parts of the North Caucasus.214 Despite having a large ground force number-
59

ing slightly less than 800,000 troops, and a police force 

of more than 900,000 service members, the number of 

elite armed forces in Russia is notoriously low.

The current draining of local jamaats, partly caused 

by the outflow of many frustrated youth to Syria, has 

enabled these elite units to carry out concentrated attacks on insurgents and their supporters. Given recent 

developments, however, this situation may fundamentally change in the near future. For example, the 

flow of North Caucasian volunteers traveling to Syria 

may be reduced. Alternatively, Russia’s hybrid war 

in eastern Ukraine—where such elite units have been 

deployed en masse—or in Syria, where Moscow has 

been increasingly aiding the al-Assad regime,215 may 

divert them from the North Caucasus theater.216 There 

is also evidence that Moscow has already redeployed 

some of these elite troops from the North Caucasus to 

the war in eastern Ukraine.217 According to the news 

portal Kavkazskaya politika (Caucasian Politics): 

As of now the relocation of experienced servicemen 

from the regions of the North Caucasian Federal 

District to southeastern Ukraine has started and the 

relocated individuals are mainly not Caucasians. . . . 

This will significantly weaken Russian forces and undermine their work against the armed underground 

in the North Caucasus. No doubt, this will allow the 

militants of the Caucasus Emirate to strengthen their 

ranks at least to some extent, if not overpower the Russian forces.218

Against the background of Russia’s dearth of elite 

troops, it cannot be completely ruled out that, should 

the circumstances necessitate, local police forces may 

once again become the main counterinsurgency force 

in the region. Even today, local police units have been 

deployed as an auxiliary counterinsurgency force 
60

during zachistkas or other raids. Local police units also 

continue to carry out preventive attacks, that are largely indiscriminate and incompetent, on insurgents’ 

alleged supporters and sympathizers. In the face of 

elite forces’ decreasing involvement in special operations outside of Russia, local police have returned to 

the forefront of regional counterinsurgency.219 The 

authorities’ inability to combat the persisting corruption and nepotism in the region, including within the 

security personnel, suggests that siloviki will not be an 

effective counterinsurgency force in the near future.

Having disrupted insurgents’ ties with their supporters among the local population, zachistkas have 

led to an immediate decrease in insurgent activity in 

the affected areas. In the short term, zachistkas have 

proven to be effective in breaking the insurgents’ networks of local supporters, as villagers must first take 

care of themselves and their families before providing 

support to insurgents. During zachistkas, villagers are 

usually evacuated away from their area to camps in 

open fields, even during cold months.220 What appears 

to be a success in the short term, however, will not necessarily translate into permanent success. Following 

weeks or months of zachistkas, OMON units withdraw 

from the vicinity of “besieged” villages, and some of 

the local population—antagonized by the incumbent’s 

behavior—seek to continue providing the remaining 

insurgents with support.221 As the following writing 

demonstrates, while successful in the short term, zachistkas may generate masses of frustrated males sympathizing with the counterinsurgents, which in the 

end could cause the situation in the affected areas to 

deteriorate in subsequent years. 

Additionally, the deployment of Russian army 

units in Dagestan has reportedly led to rivalry, mis-
61

communication, and mutual animosity between the 

predominantly ethnic-Russian units of the Russian 

army and the local siloviki, comprised almost exclusively of members of indigenous ethnic groups. This 

has somewhat reduced the effectiveness of the military operations conducted in this North Caucasian 

republic, as collaboration between local police and the 

Russian “newcomers” has not been without issue. For 

example, local police have refrained from providing 

Russian counterinsurgents with accurate intelligence 

or have avoided subordination to ethnic Russian officers in charge of special operations.222

Information about the authorities’ efforts to curb 

the financing of Dagestani, Ingush, and KabardinoBalkar jamaats is scarce. From the information available, most experts assert that—in contrast to Kadyrov’s fruitful initiatives to maintain his grip over the 

Chechen diaspora communities in Russia and Europe 

and their money transfers to Chechen insurgents—no 

such initiatives have been pushed forward by federal 

or Dagestani authorities.223 This may be caused by 

the very multi-ethnic character of Dagestani diaspora 

communities. Dagestan’s ethnic mosaic has resulted in 

the existence of a variety of power centers and ethnic 

multipolarity, as well as fluid ethnic or clan coalitions, 

all of which are difficult to control. Chechnya, a republic of more than 1 million inhabitants, has been ruled 

by a single, authoritarian, and mono-ethnic leadership 

that has imposed strict control over the local population, including control over the flow of money into 

the republic. It also forces the local population to pay 

tribute to the regime on a regular basis.224 With nearly 

3 million inhabitants, Dagestan, on the other hand, is 

a pluralistic society in which strict control over the republic’s political and economic spheres, including its 

financial resources, is difficult to impose. 
62

In addition, most of the funding for Dagestani (and 

Kabardino-Balkarian) jamaats appears to come from 

their “taxing” of local businesses. This is not the case 

in Chechnya, however, where businesses are forced to 

pay tribute directly to the Kadyrov family. To prevent 

these local businesses from being blackmailed and 

targeted by local jihadists, authorities have to provide 

these businesses, their owners, and employees with a 

substantial degree of personal safety. This, however, 

is a very demanding task, because providing personal 

protection to these individuals and their families goes 

well beyond the capabilities of the local police. This is 

also unlikely due to the widespread corruption of the 

republican police and administration. Underqualified 

and poorly paid, local police officers have shown immense interest in imposing their own “taxes” on local 

businesses, and protecting them is not on their agenda. 

Collective Punishment.

While the incumbent has increasingly deployed 

lethal forms of collective punishment against insurgents’ relatives in Dagestan, in Ingushetia and 

Kabardino-Balkaria—where insurgent violence has 

been decreasing—it has largely been spared. The scale 

of lethal violence being perpetrated against Dagestani 

insurgents’ relatives is thus far incomparable to that 

observed in Chechnya in the 2000s. While thousands 

went missing in Chechnya, the number of Dagestanis 

gone missing is only in the dozens. However, the destruction of insurgents’ relatives’ homes has recently 

become a widespread practice in Dagestan, causing outrage among a significant segment of the local 

population. 
63

In Chechnya, the use or threat of lethal violence 

against insurgents’ relatives has led many predominantly nationalist-minded Chechen insurgents to capitulate or defect. Nevertheless, hundreds of predominantly Salafi-minded individuals chose to remain 

in the ranks of the insurgent groups. It is arguable 

whether the smaller-scale use of the practice of forced 

disappearance of insurgents’ relatives and supporters 

could force Dagestani jihadists—a committed corps 

of fighters—to capitulate, defect, or disengage. The 

liquidation of insurgents’ relatives’ homes or firing 

them from their positions may even be less relevant 

for Dagestani jihadists, as many of these jihadists 

consider martyrdom (shahada) to be on the path of jihad—that they consider to be the ultimate goal leading a Muslim to paradise—and a desirable outcome 

not only for themselves, but also for their families.225

In Dagestan, the practice of intimidating insurgents 

through the use of violence against their relatives has 

thus far not been invoked, but it is unclear whether, 

and to what extent, it could be effective if deployed 

against Dagestani jihadists. 

The deployment of mop-up operations in Dagestan has the potential to generate a new generation of 

avengers because, although they have been considerably less violent and more selective in comparison to 

Chechnya, they have not been without their setbacks. 

For example, the populations of targeted villages have 

expressed concern over cases of looting, disrespect 

toward Islamic symbols, and the liquidation of their 

homes—all of which violate the local code of honor.226

Forced disappearances of insurgents’ relatives have 

evoked particular outrage to the point that intimidation has likely led some would-be insurgents, particularly those motivated by personal revenge, to refrain 
64

from violent mobilization or pro-insurgent support 

in order not to endanger their relatives’ lives or property. Others, however, driven by the honor-mandated 

quest for retaliation, seek to avenge the wrongs inflicted on them in spite of these higher costs. This is 

likely to ensure a constant flow of new recruits into 

the locally operating jamaats and create a vicious cycle 

of retribution and counter-retribution. In Dagestan, 

as elsewhere in the North Caucasus, some of the local population is likely to continue providing support to the insurgents, due to both the prevalence of 

the codes of hospitality and their sympathies for the 

insurgents.227

In Chechnya, it has been the deployment of the 

kadyrovtsy as a numerous,228 well-equipped, and determined paramilitary force consisting of local men, 

many of whom are veterans of the previous war, 

that has stemmed the tide of the armed conflict. The

kadyrovtsy’s knowledge of the local social landscape, 

the modi operandi and vivendi of the insurgents—their 

former fellow fighters—and their identities and social 

networks have been crucial to their success. The kadyrovtsy’s large-scale use of violence against the relatives 

of insurgents and their supporters has also played an 

immense role in breaking the local insurgency. None 

of these measures has been put into practice in Dagestan or elsewhere in the North Caucasus to the same 

extent as in Chechnya, which begs the question as to 

what makes Chechnya unique in this regard. 

One factor is that Dagestani authorities have 

launched a series of programs to win over insurgents.229 In addition, the republic’s head, Ramazan 

Abdulatipov, has openly encouraged the establishment of militia or paramilitary units.230 Modeled after 

the kadyrovtsy, these units would be responsible for 
65

fighting insurgent groups in their respective areas; 

however, there is no evidence thus far of efforts by 

Dagestani authorities to follow the Chechen example 

of deploying capitulated or defected insurgents in 

combat against their former comrades-in-arms. The 

reasons for this are manifold, and all relate to Dagestan’s structural differences from Chechnya. Unlike 

Chechnya, with its “pacified” public space, which 

came at the cost of thousands of civilians killed in the 

two successive wars and in the ruthless counterinsurgency that ensued, Dagestan has experienced no 

widespread violence of that magnitude. 

In the early-2000s, the Russian army deployed 

largely indiscriminate violence in Chechnya, where 

they considered virtually any Chechen male of conscription age as a suspect and thus a potential target. 

While membership in the kadyrovtsy units became synonymous with survival for many Chechen youth in 

the early-2000s, this has not been the case in Dagestan. 

Dagestan’s economy is in considerably better shape 

than post-war Chechnya’s economy was in the early2000s, when many youth sought to enter the kadyrovtsy paramilitaries in order to survive economically. As 

a result, Dagestani youth do not strive to enter local 

counterinsurgency militia units. 

Dagestan has enjoyed a certain degree of civil liberties that may be considered free by regional standards. In spite of the frequent assassinations of local 

journalists, relatively free and diverse media still exist in Dagestan. This is in stark contrast to Chechnya, 

where all media outlets are—without exception—subordinate to Kadyrov. Unlike Chechnya, Dagestan is a 

republic ruled by oligarchs, serving as champions of 

their ethnic communities and in turn relying on their 

support. Another difference between the two repub-
66

lics is that NGOs are active in Dagestan but have been 

gradually eradicated in Chechnya, with the remnants 

of human rights organizations and monitors such as 

Memorial effectively having been pushed out of the 

republic by the mid-2000s. A hypothetical “Chechenization” of Dagestan, including the installation of an 

authoritarian regime, the establishment of kadyrovtsystyle paramilitaries, and the deployment of large-scale 

violence against the relatives of local insurgents by 

those paramilitaries would necessarily run aground 

Dagestan’s intricate ethnic makeup and the associated multitude of power centers. In Dagestan, the 

emergence of a mono-ethnic autocracy dependent on 

mono-ethnic paramilitaries and aimed against the republic’s multi-ethnic population would entail strong 

popular dissent among the republic’s various ethnic groups, which would fiercely defy such a move. 

This could result in a series of interethnic clashes that 

Moscow would barely be able to control. As a largely 

homogenous entity, the Dagestani insurgency has not 

witnessed an ideological split between Salafi-jihadists 

and nationalists—a split that might prompt members 

of one group to defect to the authorities in order to 

settle a score with members of the rival group. When 

combined, these factors explain Moscow’s hesitation 

to install a Chechnya-style regime in Dagestan and its 

decision to selectively deploy certain counterinsurgency measures adapted to Dagestan’s realities. 

Infiltration and Decapitation.

The infiltration of jihadist groups has proven to be 

an effective counterinsurgency practice that has facilitated these groups’ gradual breakdown from within. 

Infiltration has been facilitated by the massive number 
67

of recruits joining jihadist groups from the late-2000s 

until around 2013. Sources from the region nevertheless suggest that, along with the declining number of 

recruits into jihadist groups, jihadist leadership has 

become increasingly skeptical of new recruits. Dagestani jihadists, for example, have reintroduced the established mechanism of recruitment. To enter a jamaat, 

a prospective recruit is required to bring along a “recommendation” from at least two jihadists or a reputed 

Salafi imam; his family history is investigated, and he 

must carry out an initiation killing that is videotaped 

by fellow fighters.231 Taken together, these protective 

steps have reduced the likelihood of insurgent groups 

being infiltrated by moles, and although infiltration is 

still possible, this extra time may allow jamaats to become operational and conduct violent attacks. 

To prevent infiltration, or alleviate the impact of 

successful infiltrations, Dagestani jihadist groups 

have increasingly adopted an organizational innovation by reducing membership in jamaats from 12 to 15 

members to around 7.232 Currently, only the amirs of 

local jamaats are in touch with the amirs of neighboring jamaats, while ordinary jihadists only interact with 

their fellow in-group members. As a result, ordinary 

members increasingly lack personal knowledge of jihadists who are members of other groups. Insurgent 

groups have also reinforced their autonomy, and since 

around late-2013, have become increasingly selective 

and cautious in terms of recruitment, funding, and 

contacts with outsiders than they previously were.233

Overall, decapitation has primarily proven to be 

an effective counterinsurgency method in the short 

term. Deprived of experienced leadership, many previously active insurgent groups found themselves incapable of operating. In spite of the paralysis that the 
68

jihadist groups experienced in the immediate months 

following decapitation, however, many have still 

proven capable of regeneration. As a result, decapitation has been a rather partial success overall, and the 

incumbents’ efforts to infiltrate and decapitate jihadist 

groups have been confronted by the fragmentation of 

most jihadist groups. 

The North Caucasians’ Recruitment to the Syrian 

Civil War.

The Syrian Civil War has attracted hundreds of 

North Caucasians since 2011, with these recruits usually joining one of two major jihadist groups: the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or Levant (ISIS or ISIL, 

which since 2014 has been renamed into Islamic State) 

or Jabhat al-Nusra. The split between these organizations, accompanied by occasional infighting, has 

nevertheless disillusioned many North Caucasians, 

both in the Middle East and in their native region. 

Disapproval of the Islamic State’s brazen brutality 

has prompted some North Caucasians to turn away 

from traveling to Syria and to join the local “jihad” 

instead. Rather than a movement committed to establishing a pious and fair theocracy on the principles of 

the Prophet Muhammad’s early Islamic society, the Islamic State is increasingly viewed as a plot initiated by 

the United States, Israel, and the West—a view that is 

consistent with the current attitudes prevailing in Russia.234 Kadyrov recently encapsulated this increasingly 

widespread view by pointing to the West as the mastermind of the Islamic State and other similar jihadist 

organizations with the aim of destroying the Muslim 

world from within.235 Against this backdrop, the number of Chechen volunteers to Syria probably reached 
69

its peak in 2014,236 and many young Dagestanis have 

also lost the desire to travel to Syria as a result of the 

aforementioned reasons.237

Little information is available on the North Caucasian veterans of the Syrian Civil War who have managed to return to their native cities and villages.238 It is 

likely that the Russian authorities may either prevent 

their return to the country, put them in jail, or place 

them under surveillance in order to track their contacts in the North Caucasus. Those managing to return 

to the North Caucasus and join the regional insurgency, however, give an important impetus to the insurgency, even if these fighters’ numbers are relatively 

low. The return of these fighters, now-experienced 

war veterans with connections to established jihadist 

networks operating elsewhere in the world, back into 

the North Caucasus may jeopardize Russia’s security 

situation.239 As noted by Varvara Parkhomenko, an 

International Crisis Group expert on the North Caucasus, “even if just a small percentage of those fighting 

there [in Syria] were to return to the North Caucasian 

insurgency, it could have an immense impact.”240

Importantly, only a segment of North Caucasians 

are inspired by Salafi-jihadism, and although the 

number of individual fighters driven by various motivations is impossible to determine, it is well known 

that many North Caucasians join the insurgency due 

to strictly personal motives. These individuals are 

driven by the need to retaliate—as dictated by the local code of honor—for the wrongdoings inflicted upon 

them, or in protest of what they consider to be societal 

sins and injustice. This branch of recruits is significant, 

because it will continue to remain intact irrespective 

of the developments in and around Syria.

71

IV. CONCLUSION

This monograph identified the factors that have 

contributed to the sharp decline in insurgent violence since 2013. Four major factors were identified: 

(1) the selective targeting of insurgents and their supporters; (2) the collective punishment of insurgents’ 

relatives; (3) the infiltration and decapitation of insurgent groups; and, (4) the North Caucasians’ recruitment into the Syrian Civil War. This monograph has 

shown that the first three methods were previously 

deployed in Chechnya, where the incumbent has been 

relatively successful in critically weakening the local 

insurgency. These methods have been redeployed in 

other parts of the North Caucasus, particularly in the 

hotbed of regional insurgency—Dagestan—and have 

generally led to a gradual debilitation of the local insurgent groups. 

Specifically, the use of selective violence, facilitated by the deployment of elite counterinsurgency 

units backed by the Russian army, has been conducive to the disruption of ties between the insurgents 

and their local supporters. Replacing local police as 

the main counterinsurgency force, these elite forces—comprised predominantly of SOBR and OMON 

units—have been deployed in special operations, particularly mop-ups and raids. Casualties among the 

civilian population have largely been avoided, and 

the deployment of the Russian army, aided by artillery and air force units, against insurgents in Dagestan has helped to isolate the insurgent groups’ rural 

hideouts from urban networks. The Russian Army has 

also been instrumental in destroying the insurgents’ 

infrastructure, which in turn has left local insurgent 

groups severely weakened.
72

The use of collective punishment of insurgents’ 

relatives through extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, and the liquidation of insurgents’ relatives’ homes has brought about a rather inconclusive 

outcome in Dagestan. In this key North Caucasian 

republic, collective punishment has not taken on massive proportions as was the case in Chechnya in the 

2000s. Nevertheless, as a result of newly introduced 

mop-up operations, dozens of insurgents’ relatives 

have gone missing in Dagestan without a trace—having been abducted under force by federal and local siloviki. Dozens of houses belonging to insurgents’ families have been deliberately destroyed, with authorities 

imposing increasingly new and sophisticated forms of 

collective punishment on the insurgents’ relatives. Although these methods may intimidate some of the local population, they are at the same time likely to generate determined avengers who would seek to either 

join insurgent groups or provide them with support.

Infiltration and decapitation have led to the substantial weakening of impacted insurgent groups. The 

killing of many experienced and reputed commanders 

in Chechnya, Dagestan, and elsewhere in the North 

Caucasus has paralyzed these groups, and instead of 

carrying out offensive operations, these groups have 

had to focus on regrouping and selecting new leadership. The growing attraction of the Syrian jihad, coupled with the rise of the increasingly potent jihadist 

groups operating therein, has compelled hundreds of 

North Caucasians to travel to the Middle East. Against 

this backdrop, the Russian authorities took a lax stance 

to prospective volunteers, thereby enabling its citizens 

to volunteer in the distant war. This, in turn, has led to 

the draining of recruits into North Caucasian jamaats. 
73

This monograph has illustrated that, while the 

aforementioned causes have considerably weakened 

the North Caucasus insurgent groups, they have nevertheless had their limits. Although the deployment of 

both federal and local elite counterinsurgency forces 

backed by the Russian military has been instrumental 

in weakening the local insurgency, these forces have 

been quite limited numerically. Russia’s movement of 

elite counterinsurgency units from the North Caucasus to Ukraine in 2014, and the subsequent redeployment of these troops to Syria since 2015, has reduced 

the number of elite troops in the North Caucasus, 

particularly in Dagestan. The balance of power in this 

hotbed of regional insurgency therefore appears to be 

changing already, with insurgent groups increasingly 

confronting local police units. Should the situation 

change even further through the growth of local jamaats or the deployment of SOBR and OMON units 

outside of Russia, then local police units would have 

to replace elite units as the major counterinsurgency 

force in the region.

Widespread corruption, the salience of nepotism 

and kinship ties, and the incompetence of local police—with their continued use of indiscriminate violence against the insurgents’ alleged supporters and 

sympathizers—have reduced the effectiveness of the 

local counterinsurgency. The simultaneous deployment of various branches of security personnel has 

also been accompanied by inter-institutional animosity between the ethnic-Russian “newcomers” and the 

local siloviki. In contrast to Chechnya, the incumbent 

has found it difficult to curb the sources of Dagestani 

jamaats’ predominantly local funding. 
74

Infiltration of insurgent groups has been an effective counterinsurgency method that was largely 

facilitated by the large-scale recruitment into jihadist groups in the late-2000s. Since around 2013, confronted with a decrease in the number of prospective 

recruits, local jamaats have become increasingly selective in their recruitment policies. This has made infiltration into their ranks more difficult compared to 

previous years. Against this backdrop, and coupled 

with the gradual redeployment of elite counterinsurgency forces beyond the North Caucasus, the previous 

achievements of the counterinsurgency may be lost. In 

addition, despite the paralysis that resulted from excessive killings of skilled commanders and veterans of 

the local insurgency, as well as the loss of much of their 

operational strength, jihadist groups have still proven 

to be capable of regrouping under new leadership. It 

appears that, while infiltration and decapitation have 

proven to be a successful counterinsurgency measures 

in the short term, their impact is rather limited in the 

long term.

In the meantime, the Syrian jihad has lost much of 

its appeal to many North Caucasians. In recent months, 

the brazen brutality of the Islamic State prompted 

many of its sympathizers to turn their back on this jihadist quasi-state. Instead of traveling to the distant 

Middle East, many frustrated North Caucasians appear to be motivated to stay in their home region and 

partake in the local “holy war.” In the short term, this 

could lead to the strengthening of the local insurgency, as some of these youth may be likely to join locally 

operating jamaats. While most North Caucasian jihadists are unlikely to make it back to their home region, 

even a small number of experienced jihadists returning from Syria to the North Caucasus may boost the 
75

regional insurgency, as the returning jihadists would 

bring in new contacts within the international jihadist 

scene. 

This monograph has identified the sources of jihadist groups’ viability; however, despite serious blows 

inflicted upon many of the region’s jihadist groups, 

the insurgents have proven to be a force capable of 

survival. This could be explained by a combination of 

factors. First, most insurgents appear to be individual 

avengers determined to retaliate against the wrongs 

inflicted upon them by the counterinsurgents’ predominantly indiscriminate attacks. Driven by the local 

custom of blood revenge, avengers will remain an important component of the local insurgency as long as 

indiscriminate targeting is practiced by local authorities. The lack of serious reforms of security personnel 

both on the federal and republican levels suggests that 

the local police force is likely to remain corrupt, incompetent, and incapable of conducting highly selective 

targeting of insurgents and their supporters. In spite 

of the high cost stemming from the use of selective 

violence against insurgents’ supporters, some of the 

local population—driven by the local code of hospitality and their sympathies for the insurgents—has still 

sought to provide support to the insurgents. Against 

this endogenous background, external factors, such as 

developments in other jihadist hotbeds like Syria, will 

have only a partial impact on the North Caucasian 

insurgency.

To substantially tear the social fabric of the local 

insurgency, Moscow could deploy large-scale violence against the relatives of the insurgents, similar to 

the violence it deployed in Chechnya in the 2000s. It 

could also place the burden of fighting the insurgents 

on the shoulders of the local population—particularly 
76

former insurgents. Moscow has attempted to establish kadyrovtsy-style paramilitary units in Dagestan, 

which has turned out to be a failed initiative due to the 

Dagestanis’ unwillingness to enter such units.241 The 

Russian authorities have nevertheless shown a critical 

understanding of what these attempts may mean for 

Dagestani society in comparison to Chechnya’s. Due 

to the multi-ethnic character of Dagestan, its lack of 

experience in large-scale war, the absence of an authoritarian regime, and the existence of a multitude of 

ethnic and clan-based power centers, no paramilitary 

force similar to the kadyrovtsy—including those relying on former insurgents—would have been formed 

in Dagestan. Attempts to establish authoritarian and 

necessarily mono-ethnic rule would also be counterproductive in Dagestan, where the population would 

strongly defy such a move to the point of armed resistance, and such attempts would result in interethnic clashes. This is an option that Moscow has thus 

far sought to avoid in Dagestan; rather than turning 

Dagestan into a second Chechnya, the Russian authorities have selectively applied a number of counterinsurgency measures in Dagestan that were tested 

in Chechnya. 

The North Caucasus insurgency draws on limited 

resources, is confined to a relatively small area, and is 

challenged by a far superior force. While concentrated 

attacks may substantially weaken it from time to time, 

it is likely to persist at a latent level and, so long as the 

factors detailed above linger on, will remain alive for 

the years to come.
77

ENDNOTES

1. Luke Harding, “Russia ends anti-terrorism operations in 

Chechnya,” The Guardian, April 16, 2009, available from www.

theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/16/russia-chechnya-anti-terrorism, 

accessed on October 9, 2015.

2. Michael Schwirtz, “Russia Ends Operations in Chechnya,” 

The New York Times, April 16, 2009, available from www.nytimes.

com/2009/04/17/world/europe/17chechnya.html?_r=0, accessed on 

October 15, 2015. 

3. Emil Souleimanov, “Dagestan: The Emerging Core of the 

North Caucasus Insurgency,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 

12, No. 18, September 29, 2010, available from www.cacianalyst.org/

publications/archive/item/207-caci-analyst-2010-09-29.html, accessed 

on August 12, 2015; Emil Souleimanov, “Kabardino-Balkaria 

Risks Becoming New Insurgency Hotspot,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 13, No. 4, March 2, 2011, available from www.

cacianalyst.org/publications/archive/item/216-caci-analyst-2011-03-02.

html, accessed on October 13, 2015; The Jamestown Foundation, 

“Insurgency-Related Violence Reported in Dagestan, KabardinoBalkaria and Ingushetia,” North Caucasus Weekly, Vol. 12, Iss. 22, 

November 18, 2011. 

4. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “The Karachay Jamaat: Alive and Operational,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 9, Iss. 118, June 21, 2012; 

Emil Souleimanov, “North Ossetia: Jihadization in the Making?” 

Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 13, No. 11, June 8, 2011, available from www.cacianalyst.org/publications/archive/item/223-cacianalyst-2011-06-08.html, accessed on October 13, 2015. 

5. Emil Souleimanov, “North Caucasus Insurgency Makes 

Inroads to Tatarstan, Bashkortostan,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 15, No. 11, May 29, 2013, available from www.cacianalyst.

org/publications/archive/item/12752-caci-analyst-may-29-2013.html, 

accessed on October 13, 2015. 

6. Quoted in Aslan Doukaev, “Is Khloponin The Right Man 

For The North Caucasus?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Commentary, October 9, 2010, available from www.rferl.org/content/

Is_Khloponin_The_Right_Man_For_The_North_Caucasus/2185521.

html, accessed on October 13, 2015. 
78

7. Ibid.

8. At the time, this unprecedented display of the jihadists’ resolve and good organization was considered to be a humiliation of 

Russia’s intelligence and secret services. Emil Souleimanov, “Volgograd Bombings Demonstrate the Inability of Russia’s Security 

Services,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 

8, 2014, available from www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analyticalarticles/item/12890-volgograd-bombings-demonstrate-the-inability-ofrussias-security-services.html, accessed on August 12, 2015. 

9. Emil Souleimanov, “The Republic of Dagestan: the epicenter of Islamist insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus,” IPRIS, 

Vol. 4, December 2011. 

10. Data from the Kavkazskiy uzel news site summarized in 

Huseyn Aliyev, “Conflict-related Violence Decreases in the North 

Caucasus as Fighters go to Syria,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 

Vol. 17, No. 6, April 1, 2015, available from www.cacianalyst.org/

publications/analytical-articles/item/13171-conflict-related-violencedecreases-in-the-north-caucasus-as-fighters-go-to-syria.html, accessed 

on August 12, 2015; Liz Fuller, “Why Is The Death Toll Tumbling 

In The North Caucasus?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, February 10, 2015, available from www.rferl.org/a/

insurgency-north-caucasus-terrorism-isis/26840778.html, accessed on 

October 13, 2015. 

11. “Zhertvami Vooruzhennogo Konflikta na Severnom Kavkaze v Pervom Kvartale 2015 Goda Stali 51 Chelovek” (“In the 

First Quarter of 2015, 51 Fell Victim to the Armed Conflict in the 

North Caucasus”), Kavkazskiy uzel, April 24, 2015, available 

from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/261215/, accessed on September 

1, 2015. 

12. Based on Kavkazskiy uzel’s statistics. According to official 

sources, insurgents formed the most casualties. 

13. For a recent analysis of the situation of the local insurgency, see, for instance, Huseyn Aliyev, “Revival of Islamist 

Insurgency in the North Caucasus?” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, October 14, 2016, available from cacianalyst.org/publications/

analytical-articles/item/13403-revival-of-islamist-insurgency-in-thenorth-caucasus?.html, accessed on October 22, 2016. 
79

14. Andrew E. Kramer and Neil MacFarquhar, “Fierce Attack 

by Islamist Militants in Chechen Capital Kills at Least 20,” The 

New York Times, December 4, 2014, available from www.nytimes.

com/2014/12/05/world/europe/grozny-chechnya-attack.html, accessed 

on October 13, 2015; Emil Souleimanov, “Attacks in Grozny Unlikely to Revive the Chechen Insurgency,” Central Asia-Caucasus 

Analyst, Vol. 16, No. 23, December 10, 2014, available from www.

cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/13110-attacks-ingrozny-unlikely-to-revive-the-chechen-insurgency.html, accessed on 

October 13, 2015. 

15. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Was the December 4 Rebel Attack 

in Grozny Aimed at Tarnishing the Images of Putin and Kadyrov?” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 11, Iss. 221, December 11, 2014. 

16. Author’s estimates based on discussions with experts. 

17. Aliyev, “Revival of Islamist insurgency in the North 

Caucasus?”

18. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Increased Insurgent Activity Reported in Chechnya,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 12, Iss. 46, March 

12, 2015. 

19. Ibid. 

20. “Troe Voennosluzhashchikh Podorvalis’ na Mine v 

Chechne” (“Three Troops Trapped by a Mine in Chechnya”), Kavkazskiy uzel, August 9, 2015, available from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/

articles/266907/, accessed on August 19, 2015.

21. “Ivanov: na Severnom Kavkaze Vse Yeshche Slozhnaya 

Kriminogennaya Obstanovka” (“In the North Caucasus, a Difficult Criminogenic Situation Persists”), Gazeta, February 26, 2015.

22. Languages belonging to the Nakho-Dagestani (Chechen; 

Ingush; and various Dagestani languages including Avar, Dargin, 

Lak, Lezgin), Adyghe or Circassian (Cherkes, Kabardin, Adyg, 

Abaza), Iranian (Ossetian, Tat), Turkic (Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, 

Noghai), and Slavic (Russia, Ukrainian) language families dominate the ethnolinguistic landscape of the North Caucasus. 
80

23. For an analysis of Islam as a discursive phenomenon in 

the Caucasus and Chechnya, see Sofie Bedford and Emil Souleimanov, “Under construction and highly contested: Islam in the 

post-Soviet Caucasus,” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 37, Iss. 9, 2016, 

pp. 1559-1580. 

24. Historically, the present-day Stavropol and Kranodar 

provinces also used to be part of the North Caucasus. As these 

provinces are now inhabited predominantly by a Slavic and partially by a non-Slavic—for example, Armenians and Meskhetian 

Turks—population of non-indigenous origin, the Stavropol and 

Krasnodar provinces are treated separately from the “ethnic” rest 

of the North Caucasus. 

25. Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus, London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2004. 

26. In contrast, since the 1860s, hundreds of thousands of 

Adyghe (Circassian) peoples were exiled from their homeland to 

the Ottoman Empire, with their land given predominantly to Cossacks and Russian colonists. 

27. For a discussion of the number of casualties, see, for instance, John B. Dunlop, “How many soldiers and civilians died 

during the Russo-Chechen war of 1994–1996?” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 3–4, 2000, p. 338.

28. John B. Dunlop, Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

29. Emil Souleimanov, “Chechnya, Wahhabism and the Invasion of Dagestan,” Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA), Vol. 9, No. 4, December 2005, pp. 68-100.

30. Domitilla Sagramoso, “The Radicalisation of Islamic Salafi 

Jamaats in the North Caucasus: Moving Closer to the Global Jihadist Movement?” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 64, Iss. 3, 2012, pp. 561-

595; see also Julie Wilhelmsen, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: 

The Islamisation of the Chechen Separatist Movement,” EuropeAsia Studies, Vol. 57, Iss. 1, January 2005, pp. 35-59. For an analysis of the recruitment strategies of Chechnya’s Salafi-jihadists in 

the interwar period, see Emil A. Souleimanov, “Jihad or Security? 
81

Understanding the Jihadization of Chechen Insurgency through 

Recruitment into Jihadist Units,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern 

Studies, Vol. 17, Iss. 1, 2015, pp. 86-105.

31. Jean-François Ratelle and Emil Aslan Souleimanov, “Retaliation in Rebellion: The Missing Link to Explaining Insurgent 

Violence in Dagestan,” Terrorism and Political Violence, forthcoming in 2017, published online March 17, 2015, available from www.

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09546553.2015.1005076. See also 

Emil Souleimanov, An Endless War: The Russian-Chechen Conflict 

in Perspective, Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang, 2007. 

32. For more information on the causes and contexts of the establishment of the Caucasus Emirate (CE), see, for instance, Emil 

Souleimanov, “The Caucasus Emirate: Genealogy of an Islamist 

Insurgency,” Middle East Policy, Vol. 18, Iss. 4, Winter 2011, pp. 

155-168; Stephen Blank and Younkyoo Kim, “The North Caucasus: Russia’s Other War,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 

29, Iss. 2, 2016, pp. 185-202; Stephen Blank, “Russia’s Caucasus 

Wars: The Wrecks of Empire and the Wars of Decolonization,” 

American Foreign Policy Interests, Vol. 34, Iss. 4, 2012, pp. 182-193. 

33. Interestingly, this organization found its way onto the U.S. 

list of terrorist groups as late as 2011.

34. Souleimanov, “The Caucasus Emirate.” 

35. Clan or patrimonial family as a social institution has 

largely faded away in the Northwestern Caucasus, while family 

ties have remained strong even in Karachayevo-Cherkesiya and 

Kabardino-Balkaria.

36. In addition to these practices, nepotism drawing on the 

sense of shared clan or family identity has remained strong in the 

North Caucasus. 

37. Note that females are exempt from the practice of blood 

revenge. In Dagestan, as elsewhere in the North Caucasus beyond 

Chechnya and Ingushetia, retaliation is almost exclusively aimed 

at the actual culprit himself. It rarely, if at all, targets the actual 

culprit’s relatives. 
82

38. Мalaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia (Little Soviet Encyclopaedia), 

Vol. 1, Moscow, Russia: Sovetskaya Entsiklopedia, 1928. p. 960 c.

39. Author’s numerous discussions with North Caucasians. 

40. From the interwar period (1920-1941) onward, this custom 

has been influenced by the criminal code of honor, known as vorovskoy zakon (thieves’ code) in Russian, and associated primarily 

with the tradition of the criminals-in-law, vor z zakone.

41. Souleimanov, An Endless War, pp. 205-209. 

42. For a detailed overview of the socioeconomic and political 

situation in the North Caucasus, see Elena Pokalova, Chechnya’s 

Terrorist Network: The Evolution of Terrorism in Russia’s North Caucasus, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015, pp. 144-147. 

43. See “Uroven Bezrabotitsi v Chechne Dostig 80-ti Protsentov” (“Unemployment in Chechnya Reached 80 Percent”), Kavkazskiy uzel, April 5, 2005, available from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/

articles/72602/, accessed on July 8, 2014. 

44. “Russian unemployment ranges from 1.2% in St. Petersburg to 31.1% in Ingushetia—Rosstat,” Interfax, October 20, 2014, 

available from www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=545081, accessed 

on October 9, 2015. 

45. William Ascher, author, Natalia Mirovitskaya, ed., Development Strategies, Identities, and Conflict in Asia, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, p. 159.

46. Alexander Auzan and Sergey M. Bobylev, eds. (Russian), 

Ben W. Hooson, ed. (English), Modernization and Human Development, National Human Development Report for the Russian 

Federation 2011, Moscow, Russia: United Nations Development 

Programme, 2011.

47. Natalia Zubarevich, Sotsial`no-ekonomicheskoe razvitie respublik Severnogo Kavkaza: kolichestvennye i ekspertnye otsenki in Portrety Regionov (The Socio-Economic Development of the North Caucasus Republics: Quantitative and Expert Assessments, in: The Portraits 

of [Russian] Regions), Moscow: Nezavisimyi Institut Sotsial`noi 

Politiki, 2010.
83

48. Ibid.

49. Tom Parfitt, “Trouble in the North Caucasus,” The 

Guardian, June 22, 2009 available from www.theguardian.com/

commentisfree/2009/jun/22/ingushetia-president-assassinationcaucasus, accessed on October 9, 2015. 

50. Dagestan’s former President, Mukhu Aliyev, quoted in 

Tony Wood, Chechnya: The Case for Independence, London, UK: 

Verso, 2007, p. 140. 

51. “Opros: Zhiteli Dagestana Nazvali Tri Glavnye Prichiny 

Vspleska Nasiliya v Respublike” (“Survey: Dagestan’s Inhabitants Name Three Main Reasons for Violence”), Caucasus Times, 

May 10, 2013. 

52. Robert Bruce Ware and Enver Kisriev, Dagestan: Russian 

Hegemony and Islamic Resistance in the North Caucasus, Armonk, 

NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2010, pp. 62-73. 

53. Author’s numerous discussions with Dagestanis. 

54. The Russians comprise around 22 percent of KabardinoBalkaria’s population. 

55. Gordon M. Hahn, Russia’s Islamic Threat, New Haven, CT: 

Yale University Press, 2007; Sergey Markedonov, Radical Islam in 

the North Caucasus: Evolving Threats, Challenges, and Prospects, CSIS 

Reports, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International 

Studies, 2010; Robert W. Schaefer, The Insurgency in Chechnya and 

the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Security International, 2011; Lorenzo Vidino, “How Chechnya 

Became a Breeding Ground for Terror,” Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 

XII, No. 3, Summer 2005, pp. 57-66; Paul J. Murphy, The Wolves of 

Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror, Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 

2004; Yossef Bodansky, Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda’s Training Ground 

and the Next Wave of Terror, New York: Harper Collins, 2007. 

56. Hahn, Russia’s Islamic Threat, p. 14. 

57. For a comprehensive analysis of these allegations, see Brian Glyn Williams, “Shattering the Al-Qaeda-Chechen Myth: Part 

I,” North Caucasus Weekly, Vol. 4, Iss. 35, October 2, 2003; Brian 
84

Glyn Williams, “Shattering the Al-Qaeda-Chechen Myth (Part 

II): Exploring the Links Between the Chechen Resistance and Afghanistan,” North Caucasus Weekly, Vol. 4, No. 40, November 6, 

2003. 

58. Andrew McGregor, “Ghost Soldiers: Osama bin Laden’s 

Chechen Legion,” Shout! June-July 2002.

59. Ibid. 

60. See, for instance, Sagramoso, “The Radicalisation of 

Islamic Salafi Jamaats in the North Caucasus.”

61. Bodansky. For a critical analysis of this approach, see, for 

instance, Emil Souleimanov and Ondrej Ditrych, “The Internationalisation of the Russian-Chechen Conflict: Myths and Reality,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 60, Iss. 7, 2008, pp. 1199-1222. For a 

nuanced analysis of the phenomenon of Arab foreign fighters in 

the Chechen wars, see Cerwyn Moore and Paul Tumelty, “Foreign Fighters and the Case of Chechnya: A Critical Assessment,” 

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 31, Iss. 5, 2008, pp. 412-433; 

Cerwyn Moore, “Foreign Bodies: Transnational Activism, the Insurgency in the North Caucasus and ‘Beyond’,” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol 27, Iss. 3, 2015, pp. 395-415.

62. For a nuanced analysis of this process, see, for instance, 

James Hughes, Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad, Philadelphia, 

PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. 

63. In Russia, authorities have traditionally rejected their 

share of responsibility for the violence in the region or its indigenous roots, presenting it instead as an imported affair. 

64. Jean-François Ratelle, “A critical assessment of the scholarship on violent conflicts in the North Caucasus during the postSoviet period,” Caucasus Survey, Vol. 3, Iss. 1, 2015, p. 7. 

65. Matthew Evangelista, The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go 

the Way of the Soviet Union? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002; Wilhelmsen; Ekaterina Sokirianskaya, “State and 

Violence in Chechnya (1997–1999),” in Anne Le Huérou, Aude 

Merlin, Amandine Regamey, and Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski, 
85

eds., Chechnya at War and Beyond, Abingdon: Routledge, 2014, 

pp. 93-117. 

66. Souleimanov, “Chechnya, Wahhabism and the Invasion 

of Dagestan.”

67. Georgi M. Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005; Souleimanov, An Endless War; Sokirianskaya. 

68. Emil Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists: Why Ex-Militants 

Choose to Abandon Violence in the North Caucasus, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 

69. Anne Speckhard and Khapta Ahkmedova, “The Making 

of a Martyr: Chechen Suicide Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 29, Iss. 5, 2006, pp. 429-492. 

70. Jean-François Ratelle, “The North Caucasus insurgency: 

understanding the Chechen rebels in the context of the Caucasus 

Emirate,” in Anne Le Huérou, Aude Merlin, Amandine Regamey, Elisabeth Sieca-Kozlowski, eds., Chechnya at War and Beyond,

Abingdon: Routledge, 2014, p. 188. 

71. See information presented further in this monograph.

72. In this regard, the North Caucasian experience of jihadist 

radicalization is similar to the same process in other parts of the 

world, including Muslim diaspora communities in the West. See, 

for instance, Rachel Briggs and Jonathan Birdwell, “Radicalisation Among Muslims in the UK,” Microcon Policy Working Paper 7, 

Brighton: Microcon, 2009; Mehdi Hasan, “The Muslim faith does 

not turn men to terror: The two suspects in the Woolwich killing 

were violating the doctrine of their own holy book,” The Telegraph, 

May 23, 2013. 

73. Souleimanov, “Jihad or Security?” Souleimanov and Aliyev, The Individual Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and 

Jihadists. Yet this is a common experience that scholars have observed in the case of, for instance, non-religious nationalist terrorist, and insurgent groups as well. 
86

74. Ratelle, “A Critical Assessment of the Scholarship.” 

75. Souleimanov, “Jihad or Security?” 

76. “North Caucasus: The Challenges of Integration (II), Islam, the Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency,” Crisis Group Europe Report N°221, Brussels, Belgium: Headquarters, International 

Crisis Group, October 19, 2012, p. 15. 

77. For a discussion on the religious aspects of the North Caucasus insurgency, see, for instance, Ratelle, “A Critical Assessment of the Scholarship,” p. 9.

78. For an overview of this debate, see, for instance, Doug 

Saunders, “What Turns Some Western Muslims Into Terrorists? 

The Causes of Extremism,” Doug Saunders blog, entry posted 

April 25, 2013, available from www.dougsaunders.net/2013/04/

muslim-immigrants-terrorists-jihad-terrorism/, accessed on October 

13, 2015. 

79. See, for instance, Stephen J. Blank, Russia’s Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2012. 

80. Vicken Cheterian, War and Peace in the Caucasus: Ethnic 

Conflict and the New Geopolitics, New York: Columbia University 

Press, 2008. See Derluguian; Domitilla Sagramoso, “Violence and 

conflict in the Russian North Caucasus,” International Affairs, Vol. 

83, Iss. 4, July 27, 2007, pp. 681-705; Jean-François Ratelle, Radical 

Islam and the Chechen War Spillover: A Political Ethnographic Reassessment of the Upsurge of Violence in the North Caucasus Since 2009, 

Doctoral Thesis, Ottawa, Canada: University of Ottawa, 2013, 

available from www.ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/23791?locale=fr, 

accessed on August 14, 2015. 

81. Derluguian; Cheterian.

82. Valery Tishkov, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in and 

after the Soviet Union: The Mind Aflame, London, UK: SAGE Publications, 1997; Valery Tishkov, Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004; Brian 

Glyn Williams, “From ‘Secessionist Rebels’ to ‘Al Qaeda Shock 

Brigades’: Assessing Russia’s Efforts to Extend the Post-Septem-
87

ber 11th War on Terror to Chechnya,” Comparative Studies of South 

Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2004, pp. 197-209; 

Aurélie Campana, “The Effects of War on the Chechen National Identity Construction,” National Identities, Vol. 8, Iss. 2, 2006, 

pp. 129-148.

83. Christoph Zürcher, The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus, New York: New York 

University Press, 2007.

84. To be precise, some authors have studied greed-related 

factors of violent mobilization, particularly in Chechnya. See 

Tishkov, Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society, p. 104; Mark Galeotti, “‘Brotherhoods’ and ‘Associates’: Chechen Networks of 

Crime and Resistance,” Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement, 

Vol. 11, Iss. 2-3, 2002, pp. 340-352. While greed postulates that 

individuals mobilize to acquire material benefits, in Chechnya, 

however, a reverse order applied. Chechen insurgents or warlords became interested in, for example, securing their share of 

Chechnya’s oil fields in the interwar period, not during, or prior 

to the First Chechen War. The present author shows the gradual 

transformation of some Dagestani jihadist groups into organized 

crime groups interested in collaborating with the authorities for 

the sake of the personal enrichment of the leadership of these jihadist groups, see Emil Souleimanov, “Dschihadisten in Dagestan: Clans, Kompromisse und krumme Geschäfte” (“Jihadists in 

Dagestan: Clans, Compromises and Crooked Business”), Osteuropa: Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens, Vol. 65, No. 4, 2015, 

pp. 115-129. This phenomenon, however, is rather confined to the 

borders of Dagestan, with only several known jihadist groups 

engaging in such activities. Otherwise, the lethality rate among 

North Caucasian insurgents is too high, and the prospects of acquiring material benefits nearly absent, for greed to be a motivating factor for individuals to join insurgent groups. 

85. Emil Aslan Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, “Evaluating 

the efficacy of indigenous forces in counterinsurgency: Lessons 

from Chechnya and Dagestan,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 

27, Iss. 3, 2016, pp. 392-416; Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Police Violence 

in Dagestan Continues as Republic Drifts Toward Collapse From 

Within,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 11, Iss. 91, May 15, 2014; Nabi 

Abdullaev, “A Murderous Cycle of Revenge in Dagestan,” The 

Moscow Times, March 15, 2005.
88

86. Emil Souleimanov, “The Upsurge of Islamist Violence in 

the North Caucasus: Exploring the Case Studies of Dagestan and 

Kabardino-Balkaria,” Connections: The Quarterly Journal, Vol. 10, 

No. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 117-126; Alissa De Carbonnel, “Insight: 

Brutality, anger fuel jihad in Russia’s Caucasus,” Reuters, August 31, 2012, available from www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/

us-russia-dagestan-idUSBRE87U09R20120831, accessed on October 

13, 2015. 

87. “Human Rights Watch: Voyna bez voyny. Narusheniya 

prav cheloveka v khode borby rossiyskikh vlastey s vooruzhennym podpolyem v Dagestane” (“A War without a War: Human 

Rights Violations During the Russian Authorities’ Fights Against 

the Armed Resistance in Dagestan”), Kavkazskiy uzel, June 26, 

2015, available from www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/264623/, accessed 

on August 19, 2015. 

88. Interview conducted by the author with Sapiyat Magomedova, Prague, March 2014. 

89. Ratelle and Souleimanov; Jean-François Ratelle, “Making 

sense of violence in civil war: challenging academic narratives 

through political ethnography,” Critical Studies on Security, Vol. 1, 

Iss. 2, 2013, pp. 159-173; Souleimanov and Aliyev, The Individual 

Disengagement of Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists. 

90. Emil Aslan Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, “Blood 

Revenge and Violent Mobilization: Evidence from the Chechen 

Wars,” International Security, Vol. 40, Iss. 2, Fall 2015, pp. 158-180; 

Ratelle and Souleimanov.

91. Ratelle and Souleimanov; Cerwyn Moore, “Suicide Bombing: Chechnya, the North Caucasus and Martyrdom,” Europe-Asia 

Studies, Vol. 64, Iss. 9, 2012, pp. 1780-1807. 

92. Souleimanov and Aliyev, The Individual Disengagement of 

Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists; Ratelle and Souleimanov.

93. Elections of the heads of autonomous republics were abolished in the mid-2000s on the pretext of improving Russia’s security after the terrorist attack in the North Ossetian town of Beslan 

in September 2004. 
89

94. “North Caucasus: The Challenges of Integration (IV), Economic and Social Imperatives,” Crisis Group Europe Report N°237, 

Brussels, Belgium: Headquarters, International Crisis Group, July 

7, 2015; Valery Dzutsati, “Russia Fears Possible Tectonic Shifts in 

the North Caucasus,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 12, Iss. 73, April 

20, 2015, note: the Eurasia Daily Monitor uses “Dzutsati” as the 

spelling of this author’s last name; an alternate spelling of “Dzutsev” is used by other publications, see endnote 142; Andrew C. 

Kuchins, Matthew Malarkey and Sergei Markedonov, The North 

Caucasus: Russia’s Volatile Frontier, CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program Report, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), March 2011, pp. 14-16. 

95. Roland Dannreuther and Luke March, “Chechnya: Has 

Moscow Won?” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, Vol. 50, Iss. 

4, 2008, p. 108. 

96. Emil Souleimanov and Maya Ehrmann, “The Rise of Militant Salafism in Azerbaijan and Its Regional Implications,” Middle 

East Policy, Vol. XX, No. 3, Fall 2013; Alexey Malashenko, “Islamic 

Challenges to Russia, From the Caucasus to the Volga and the 

Urals,” Carnegie Moscow Center, May 13, 2015, available from

carnegie.ru/2015/05/13/islamic-challenges-to-russia-from-caucasusto-volga-and-urals/i9l4, accessed on October 14, 2015. 

97. Valery Dzutsati, “Support for Salafists Among Dagestani 

Youth Reaches Record Level,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 8, Iss. 

227, December 14, 2011. 

98. Ratelle and Souleimanov.

99. Author’s personal observations. 

100. Jean-Charles Brisard, “Terrorism Financing: Roots and 

trends of Saudi terrorism financing,” Report prepared for the 

President of the Security Council United Nations, JCB Consulting, 

December 19, 2002, p. 9, available from www.investigativeproject.

org/documents/testimony/22.pdf, accessed on October 14, 2015; Ariel 

Cohen, “A Threat to the West: The Rise of Islamist Insurgency 

in the Northern Caucasus and Russia’s Inadequate Reponse,” 

Backgrounder No. 2643, Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation, March 26, 2012, available from www.heritage.org/research/
90

reports/2012/03/a-threat-to-the-west-the-rise-of-islamist-insurgencyin-the-northern-caucasus#_ftnref55, accessed on October 14, 2015. 

101. Schaefer, p. 172. 

102. Charlotte Hille, State Building and Conflict Resolution in the 

Caucasus, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2010, p. 301.

103. Mark Mackinnon, “Will use any tactic, Chechen warlord 

warns,” The Globe and Mail, November 2, 2004, available from 

www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/will-use-any-tactic-chechenwarlord-warns/article1006369/, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

104. “The role of Al-Qaeda in the North Caucasus,” Agentura.ru, September 13, 2010, available from www.agentura.ru/english/

terrorism/alqaedanc/, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

105. Associated Press (Moscow), “Putin says US helped North 

Caucasus separatists against Russia in the 2000s,” The Guardian, 

April 26, 2015, available from www.theguardian.com/world/2015/

apr/26/putin-us-helped-north-caucasus-separatists-russia-bush, 

accessed on October 15, 2015. 

106. For an overview of his claims, see Reuters, “Think Tank 

Says Al-Qaeda Funding Caucasus Rebels,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, News, September 30, 2011, available from www.rferl.

org/a/think_tank_says_alqaeda_funding_caucasus_rebels/24344410.

html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

107. “Z Česka šly peníze na podporu teroristům z al-Kajdy” 

(“Money Transferred from the Czech Republic to Support al-Qaeda Terrorists”), Týden, May 5, 2011, available from www.tyden.

cz/rubriky/domaci/z-ceska-sly-penize-na-podporu-teroristum-z-al-kajdy_200911.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

108. Emil A. Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, “Asymmetry 

of Values, Indigenous Forces, and Incumbent Success in Counterinsurgency: Evidence from Chechnya,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 

Vol. 38, No. 5, 2015, pp. 678-703. 

109. Author’s discussions with experts on the local 

insurgency.
91

110. Souleimanov, “Dschihadisten in Dagestan: Clans, Kompromisse und krumme Geschäfte” (“Jihadists in Dagestan: Clans, 

Compromises and Crooked Business”). See also Emil Aslan Souleimanov, “Making Jihad or Making Money? Understanding 

the Transformation of Dagestan’s Jamaats into Organised Crime 

Groups,” Journal of Strategic Studies, forthcoming in 2017, published online December 28, 2015, available from dx.doi.org/10.1080

/01402390.2015.1121871. 

111. Dzutsati, “Support for Salafists Among Dagestani Youth 

Reaches Record Level.”

112. Author’s discussions with Russian and Dagestani 

experts and journalists. 

113. Emil Souleimanov and Huseyn Aliyev, How Socio-Cultural Codes Shaped Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent Support in the 

Chechen Wars, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 

114. For a comprehensive analysis of this transformation, see, 

for instance, Hughes. 

115. Three additional vilayats have existed since its establishment in 2007: the vilayats of Iriston of North Ossetia, of Cherkessia (including Cherkessia and the Adyghean autonomous republic, formally part of the Krasnodar province), and of the Noghay 

steppe (including the Noghai-dominated parts of Dagestan and 

the Stavropol province). In 2009, the North Ossetian vilayat was 

formally abolished by Dokka Umarov and incorporated into the 

Ingush vilayat. The remaining two vilayats have been nearly absent from the self-representation of the Caucasus Emirate-affiliated jihadists, due to the lack of insurgent groups in those areas. 

116. Emil Souleimanov, “Caucasus Emirate Faces Further Decline after the Death of Its Leader,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst,

April 29, 2015, available from www.cacianalyst.org/publications/

analytical-articles/item/13188-caucasus-emirate-faces-further-declineafter-the-death-of-its-leader.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

117. The most important jihadist groups, represented by their 

leaders in the Majlis ash-Shura (consultative council), take part 

in the election of the amir of the Caucasus Emirate. In addition 
92

to this consultative body, the Caucasus Emirate has its supreme 

judge (qadi) who utilizes sharia law to arbitrate disputes. In recent 

years, facing increasingly fierce counterinsurgency, these two institutions have become rather formal as insurgent leaders from 

across the North Caucasus can scarcely meet to make collective 

decisions. Given the fragmented character of the Caucasus Emirate’s organization, the qadi’s decisions are hardly enforceable by a 

supreme authority outside the radius of his insurgent group. 

118. Gordon M. Hahn, The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global 

Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2014, p. 256. 

119. Islam Tekushev, “Triumph of the Caucasus Emirate: 

The Caucasus Emirate as a Special Ethno-Fundamentalist Model,” Islam, Islamism and Politics in Eurasia Report (IIPER), No. 52,

February 17, 2012, pp. 9-20. 

120. Cerwyn Moore, “A Review of Martyrdom Operations and 

the Insurgency in the North Caucasus: 2008 to the Present,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 8, No. 34, February 17, 2011, available from 

https://jamestown.org/program/a-review-of-martyrdom-operations

-and-the-insurgency-in-the-north-caucasus-2008-to-the-present-2/, accessed on October 28, 2016.

121. Ian R. Kenyon, “The Chemical Weapons Convention and 

OPCW: The Challenges of the 21st Century,” The CBW Conventions Bulletin, Iss. 56, June 2002, p. 15. 

122. Emil Souleimanov, “Dagestan’s Jihadists and Haram 

Targeting,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 17, No. 3, February 

18, 2015, available from www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analyticalarticles/item/13140-dagestan’s-jihadists-and-haram-targeting.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

123. Schaefer, pp. 233-270.

124. For a comprehensive analysis of the geography of the 

North Caucasus insurgency, see John O’Loughlin, Edward C. 

Holland and Frank D. W. Witmer, “The Changing Geography of 

Violence in Russia’s North Caucasus, 1999-2011: Regional Trends 

and Local Dynamics in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-
93

Balkaria,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 52, Iss. 5, 2011, 

pp. 1-35. 

125. See, for instance, Souleimanov, An Endless War, 

pp. 168-169. 

126. Quoted in Mark Kramer, “The Perils of Counterinsurgency: Russia’s War in Chechnya,” International Security, Vol. 29, 

Iss. 3, 2004, p. 9. 

127. Until his assassination in May 2004, Akhmad Kadyrov was head of the Kadyrov family. Kadyrov was part of the 

Chechen separatist elites and was appointed mufti—or head—of 

Chechnya’s Muslims in 1995, during the peak of the First RussoChechen War. Kadyrov apparently took a direct part in the war 

on the Chechens’ side. During the interwar period, he supported 

Aslan Maskhadov in his confrontation with the country’s increasingly vocal and ambitious jihadist elites. Following the onset of 

hostilities in 1999, Kadyrov—known for his anti-Salafi position—

criticized Maskhadov for his inability to cope with the jihadist 

challenge. Facing the arrival of the Russian army in Gudermes, 

the second-largest Chechen city controlled by Kadyrov loyalists, Kadyrov decided to hand the city to the Russians without 

firing a single shot in order to avoid bloodshed. Following Akhmad Kadyrov’s assassination, his son Ramzan succeeded him as 

Chechnya’s (in)formal head.

128. Emil Souleimanov, “An Ethnography of Counterinsurgency: Kadyrovtsy and Russia’s Policy of Chechenization,” PostSoviet Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2015, pp. 91-114; Emil Aslan Souleimanov, Huseyn Aliyev, Jean-François Ratelle, “Defected and 

loyal? A case study of counter-defection mechanisms inside 

Chechen paramilitaries,” forthcoming in Terrorism and Political 

Violence in 2017, published online July 11, 2016, available from 

dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2016.1194270. 

129. Souleimanov, “An Ethnography of Counterinsurgency.”

130. Ibid; Emil Souleimanov, “Russian Chechnya Policy: 

‘Chechenization’ Turning Into ‘Kadyrovization’?” Central AsiaCaucasus Analyst, May 31, 2006, available from https://www.caci-
94

analyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/10873-analytical-articles-caci-analyst-2006-5-31-art-10873.html, accessed on October 28, 

2016. 

131. On some occasions, and particularly during the early 

stages of the armed conflict, the kadyrovtsy carried out attacks 

against their former enemies or relatives (those unrelated to the 

insurgency), as well as indiscriminate attacks on some villagers. 

132. Emil Aslan Souleimanov and David S. Siroky, “Random 

or Retributive?: Indiscriminate Violence in the Chechen Wars,” 

World Politics, Vol. 68, No. 4, 2016, pp. 677-712. See also Emil 

Souleimanov and David Siroky, “The Logic of Killing Kin in the 

Irregular War: Evidence from Chechnya,” Comparative Politics, 

forthcoming in 2017. 

133. “Russia/Chechnya: The ‘Dirty War’ in Chechnya: Forced 

Disappearances, Torture, and Summary Executions,” Human 

Rights Watch, Vol. 13, No. 1 (D), March 1, 2011, available from 

https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/03/01/dirty-war-chechnya-forceddisappearances-torture-and-summary, accessed on October 14, 2015. 

134. Nick Paton Walsh, “Chechen government admits civilians buried in mass graves,” The Guardian, June 15, 2005, available from www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/16/chechnya.russia,

accessed on March 21, 2014. 

135. Importantly, due to fears of penalization and impunity, many Chechen families chose not to report their hijacked 

relatives. “Chechnya, 2004 god. Pokhishcheniya i ischeznoveniya 

ludey” (“Chechnya, 2004. Abductions and Disappearances”), Memorial, February 8, 2005, available from polit.ru/article/2005/02/08/

memo/, accessed on January 15, 2013. 

136. Souleimanov and Siroky, “Random or Retributive?”

137. Author’s numerous discussions with Chechen émigrés in 

Europe and Russia, 2007-2013. 

138. Ibid.
95

139. “Worse than a War: ‘Disappearances’ in Chechnya—

a Crime Against Humanity,” Human Rights Watch Briefing 

Paper, March 2005, available from hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/

chechnya0305/, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

140. Shura Burtin, “Kadyrov ne spravlaetsa” (“Kadyrov is 

Failing”), Expert, July 14, 2009, available from expert.ru/2009/07/14/

sobutiya_kavkaz/, accessed on October 6, 2015. 

141. “Chechnya: ‘Siloviki’ Ispolzuyut Rodstvennikov Boevikov v Kachestve Zhivogo Shchita” (“Chechnya: Law Enforcement Uses the Insurgents’ Relatives as a Shield”), Memorial, September 9, 2010, available from www.memo.ru/2010/09/09/0909101.

htm, accessed on February 12, 2014. 

142. For an analysis of the nature of Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime in Chechnya, his personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, 

and the sources of his power, see Emil Aslan Souleimanov and 

Grazvydas Jasutis, “The dynamics of Kadyrov’s regime: between 

autonomy and dependence,” Caucasus Survey, Vol. 4, Iss. 2, 2016, 

pp. 115-128. For an analysis of the phenomenon of Chechnya’s 

(and North Caucasus’) pro-Moscow elites through the prism of 

indirect rule theory, see, for instance, David S. Siroky, Valery 

Dzutsev, and Michael Hechter, “The differential demand for indirect rule: evidence from the North Caucasus,” Post-Soviet Affairs,

Vol. 29, Iss. 3, 2013, pp. 268-286. 

143. Souleimanov and Siroky, “Random or Retributive?” Tanya Lokshina, “Dispatches: Burning Down the House in Chechnya,” Human Rights Watch, December 10, 2014, available from 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/12/10/dispatches-burning-downhouse-chechnya, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

144. Dmitry Volchek, “‘Absolute Schizophrenia’ Reigns In 

Kadyrov’s Chechnya, Says Filmmaker,” Radio Free Europe/Radio 

Liberty, North Caucasus March 15, 2015, available from www.rferl.

org/content/russia-chechnya-kadyrov-documentary-loizeau/26902320.

html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

145. Souleimanov and Siroky, “Random or Retributive?”

146. Ibid.
96

147. Interview with Ekaterina Sokirianskaya, January 2014. 

148. These wrongs have often included severe torture, killing, 

or humiliation—particularly rape—of insurgents or their relatives at the hands of the kadyrovtsy.

149. Souleimanov, “Attacks in Grozny Unlikely to Revive the 

Chechen Insurgency.”

150. Interview with Abdulla Istamulov, June 2014.

151. “Five killed in suicidal bombing in Chechen capital,” 

BBC News, October 5, 2014, available from www.bbc.com/news/

world-europe-29498909, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

152. Liz Fuller, “Was The Insurgent Attack On Grozny A Trial Run?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, 

December 6, 2014, available from www.rferl.org/a/grozny-attackchechnya/26728961.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

153. Souleimanov and Aliyev, “Asymmetry of Values, Indigenous Forces, and Incumbent Success in Counterinsurgency.”

154. “Report Tells How FSB Targeted Basayev,” The Moscow 

Times, March 27, 2007, available from www.pressreader.com/russia/

the-moscow-times/20070327/281569466277140, accessed on October 

27, 2016. 

155. Putin decorated 26 people at the time, including two 

men. Ibid.

156. Kenyon, p. 47.

157. Valeriy Lebedev, “Chechenskiy Khirurg Khasan Bayev” 

(“Chechen Surgeon Khasan Bayes”), Vestnik, Vol. 11, No. 244, 

May 23, 2000, available from www.vestnik.com/issues/2000/0523/

koi/lebedev.htm, accessed on October 20, 2015. 

158. “Russian Security Had Mole in Chechens Who Attacked Theater,” Agence France Presse, April 28, 2003, available 

from https://www.aei.org/publication/russian-security-had-mole-inchechens-who-attacked-theater/, accessed on October 15, 2015. 
97

159. “Российские спецслужбы травят чеченских боевиков 

ядом” (“Russian Secret Services Poison Chechen Fighters”), 

Newsland, July 2015, newsland.com/news/detail/id/539538/, 

accessed October 2015.

160. Ibid. Interestingly, Chechen authorities have claimed that 

they annihilated those slain insurgents in combat. 

161. Ibid.

162. These units have been intensely deployed in Dagestan 

and other areas of the North Caucasus since early-2013.

163. See, for instance, Mumin Shakirov, “V Dagestane Sozdayutsa Novie Podrazdeleniya Spetsnaza” (“New Units of Spetsnaz 

are Being Formed in Dagestan”), Newsland, September 27, 2010, 

available from newsland.com/news/detail/id/563403/, accessed on 

August 14, 2015. 

164. Author’s consultations with Russian and North Caucasian security experts, 2014-2015.

165. These counterterrorism departments have in fact largely drawn on the local police force. Lacking proper training and 

equipment, they have numbered only several hundred servicemen. Units of the republican directorates of the Russian security 

service Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB), known by the acronym (UFSB), which are by far a more competent force, have 

also been deployed. Due to the proliferation of insurgent groups, 

particularly in Dagestan, these numerically weak forces nevertheless soon ceased to adequately confront the jihadists. 

166. Alissa De Carbonnel, “Insight: Russia fears return of 

fighters waging jihad in Syria,” Reuters, November 14, 2013, 

available from www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-russiacaucasus-syria-insight-idUSBRE9AD05Q20131114, accessed on

October 15, 2015. 

167. Emil Souleimanov, “What Does Amirov’s Arrest Imply 

for Dagestan?” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 15, No. 13, June 

26, 2013. 
98

168. Souleimanov, “Dschihadisten in Dagestan: Clans, Kompromisse und krumme Geschäfte” (“Jihadists in Dagestan: Clans, 

Compromises and Crooked Business”). 

169. Souleimanov and Aliyev, How Socio-Cultural Codes Shape 

Violent Mobilization and Pro-Insurgent Support in the Chechen Wars.

170. Amounts have ranged from $10,000 to $100,000 U.S. dollars, depending on function. Author’s numerous discussions with 

Dagestanis, 2007-2013. 

171. Souleimanov, “What Does Amirov’s Arrest Imply for 

Dagestan?” 

172. Souleimanov and Aliyev, “Evaluating the Efficacy of Indigenous Forces in Counterinsurgency.”

173. Ibid.

174. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Russian Counter-Terrorism Operations Return to Ingushetia,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 12, Iss. 

123, July 1, 2015, available from https://jamestown.org/program/

russian-counter-terrorism-operations-return-to-ingushetia-2/,

accessed on October 28, 2016; Valery Dzutsati, “Six Suspected 

Rebels Killed in Kabardino-Balkaria,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 

12, Iss. 140, July 27, 2015; “Counter-terrorist operation regime 

declared in Nalchik, in North Caucasus,” Russian News Agency, 

June 30, 2015, available from tass.ru/en/russia/804827, accessed on 

October 10, 2015. 

175. “Vse voprosy dolzhny reshatsya v ramkakh zakona, a ne 

po adatam” (“All Problems Should Be Solved According to Law, 

not Adat”), Kommersant, January 11, 2013, available from www.

kommersant.ru/doc-y/2102663, accessed on August 10, 2015.

176. Valery Dzutsati, “Redeployment of Russian Forces to 

Ukraine Leads to Drop in Violence in North Caucasus,” Eurasia 

Daily Monitor, Vol. 12, Iss. 8, January 14, 2015. 

177. Fuller, “Why Is The Death Toll Tumbling In The North 

Caucasus?”
99

178. Emil Souleimanov, “Mopping up Gimry: ‘Zachistkas’ Reach Dagestan,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 15, 

No. 8, April 17, 2013, available from https://www.cacianalyst.org/

publications/archive/item/12711-caci-analyst-april-17-2013.html, 

accessed on August 14, 2015. 

179. “‘Invisible War’ Russia’s Abusive Response to the 

Dagestan Insurgency,” Human Rights Watch Report, June 18, 

2015, available from https://www.hrw.org/report/2015/06/18/

invisible-war/russias-abusive-response-dagestan-insurgency, accessed 

on October 15, 2015. 

180. The incumbent has reapplied experience from counterinsurgency operations in Chechnya, where similar tactics were 

applied.

181. Author’s numerous discussions with experts and ordinary Dagestanis. 

182. According to a report by Kavkazskiy uzel cited by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, around 20,000 troops were deployed 

in Dagestan. Liz Fuller, “Confusion Surrounds Reported Troop 

Deployment to Daghestan,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, March 20, 2012, available from www.rferl.org/a/

confusion_surrounds_reported_troop_deployment_to_

daghestan/24522096.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

183. Emil Souleimanov, “Russia Redeploys Army to Dagestan,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 14, No. 23, November 

14, 2012, available from https://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/

archive/item/236-caci-analyst-2012-11-14.html, accessed on August 14, 2015; Souleimanov, “Dagestan’s Jihadists and Haram 

Targeting.”

184. A group calling itself the Black Hawks was formed in 

Kabardino-Balkaria in 2011; it called for a Chechnya-style retributive liquidation of insurgents’ relatives as a legitimate means of 

fighting the local insurgency. See, for instance, Liz Fuller, “Who 

Are Kabardino-Balkaria’s ‘Black Hawks’?” Radio Free Europe/Radio 

Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, February 24, 2011, available from 

www.rferl.org/a/who_are_kabardino-balkaria_back_hawks/2319966.

html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 
100

185. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Kabardino-Balkaria’s ‘Black 

Hawks:’ Grassroots Vigilantes or FSB Surrogates?” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 8, Iss. 49, March 11, 2011, available from https://

jamestown.org/program/kabardino-balkarias-black-hawks-grassrootsvigilantes-or-fsb-surrogates/, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

186. “Members of ‘execution list’ leave Dagestani village of 

Khadjalmakhi, local reports,” Caucasian Knot, April 10, 2013, 

available from eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/23670/, accessed on October 15, 2015 (Caucasian Knot is the English branch of the previously cited Russian news site, Kavkazskiy uzel).

187. “Duma Passes New Anti-Terror Bill,” The Moscow Times, 

October 27, 2013, available from www.themoscowtimes.com/news/

article/duma-passes-new-anti-terror-bill/488531.html, accessed on 

October 15, 2015. 

188. “‘Invisible War’ Russia’s Abusive Response to the Dagestan Insurgency,” Human Rights Watch Report, pp. 29-39.

189. Ibid, p. 32. 

190. Interview conducted by the author with Ekaterina 

Sokirianskaya, head of the Russian office of the International Crisis Group, September 10, 2015. 

191. According to most experts, these disappearances are to 

be attributed to the authorities’ efforts to punish either the insurgents’ relatives or, most commonly, to punish their (alleged) supporters by destroying the insurgents’ support networks. 

192. Author’s personal estimates, based on the analysis of 

open sources (Kavkazskiy uzel, Human Rights Watch, Memorial) 

and consultations with experts and human rights activists in Russia and the North Caucasus. 

193. Irina Gordienko, “Stvoly Rubyat Pod Koren. Posle 

Unichtozheniya Boevikov Dagestanskogo “Lesa” Siloviki Vzyalis 

Za Ikh Rodstvennikov” (“Trees are Being Cut at the Root. Having liquidated the Dagestani Fighters, Law Enforcement Have 

Embarked on Their Relatives”), Novaya Gazeta, September 7, 2015, 

available from www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/69826.html, accessed 

on October 15, 2015. 
101

194. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “The Evolution of Salafism in the 

North Caucasus,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 9, Iss. 157, August 

16, 2012. 

195. Souleimanov, “Caucasus Emirate Faces Further Decline 

after the Death of Its Leader.” 

196. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Why Do Jamaat Leaders Die so 

Often in North Caucasus Special Operations?” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 11, Iss. 212, November 26, 2014. 

197. Liz Fuller, “Gakayev Deaths Leave One Campfire Less 

In Chechen Mountains,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, January 30, 2013, available from www.rferl.org/a/

chechen-insurgency-commanders-killed-gakayev/24887859.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

198. Liz Fuller, “Suspected ‘Mole’ Who Allegedly Betrayed 

Chechen Insurgency Group to Face Trial,” Radio Free Europe/

Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, July 25, 2013, available 

from www.rferl.org/a/caucasus-chechen-insurgency-mole-temishevtrial/25057148.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

199. Emil Souleimanov, “Gakayev Brothers Killed in Chechnya,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 15, No. 3, February 

6, 2013, available from https://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/

archive/item/12642-caci-analyst-february-6-2013.html, accessed on 

August 14, 2015. 

200. Souleimanov, “Caucasus Emirate Faces Further Decline 

after the Death of Its Leader.”

201. Liz Fuller, “Six North Caucasus Insurgency Commanders 

Transfer Allegiance To Islamic State,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Caucasus Report blog, January 2, 2015, available from www.

rferl.org/a/islamic-state-north-caucasus-insurgency-commandersallegiance/26773615.html, accessed on October 15, 2015; See also 

Mark Youngman, “Between Caucasus and caliphate: the splintering of the North Caucasus insurgency,” Caucasus Survey, Vol. 4, 

Iss. 3, 2016, pp. 194-217; Emil Souleimanov, “Dagestan’s Insurgents Split over Loyalties to Caucasus Emirate and IS,” Central 

Asia-Caucasus Analyst, April 15, 2015, Vol. 17, No. 7, available 
102

from www.cacianalyst.org/publications/analytical-articles/item/13177-

dagestan’s-insurgents-split-over-loyalties-to-caucasus-emirate-and-is.

html, accessed on October 15, 2015; Emil Souleimanov, “Umarov’s (Non)Resignation: Is the North Caucasus Insurgency Becoming Divided?” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, August 19, 

2010, Vol. 12, No. 15, available from https://www.cacianalyst.org/

publications/analytical-articles/item/12111-analytical-articles-cacianalyst-2010-8-19-art-12111.html, accessed on October 16, 2015. 

202. De Carbonnel, “Insight: Russia Fears Return of Fighters 

Waging Jihad in Syria.”

203. For an overview of the North Caucasians volunteers’ motivations to take part in the Syrian Civil War, see Jean-François 

Ratelle, “North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: assessing the threat of returnees to the Russian Federation,” Caucasus Survey, Vol. 4, Iss. 3, 2016, pp. 218-238; Emil A. Souleimanov, 

“Globalizing Jihad? North Caucasians in the Syrian Civil War,” 

Middle East Policy, Vol. 21, Iss. 3, Fall 2014, pp. 154-162. For the 

causes of Russia’s declared withdrawal from Syria, see, for instance, Emil Aslan Souleimanov, “Mission Accomplished? Russia’s Withdrawal from Syria,” Middle East Policy, Vol. 23, Iss. 2, 

Summer 2016, pp. 108-118.

204. “FSB RF: V Ryadakh Boevikov v Irake Voyuyut Pochti 

Dve Tysiachi Rossiyan” (“In the Fighters’ Ranks, Almost 

Two Thousand Russians Are Combating”), Rossiyskaya gazeta,

February 20, 2015.

205. A different situation has prevailed in Chechnya, where, 

due to heavy control over the local population, Chechnya’s authorities have been able to trace the identities of missing youth, 

with the relatives of dozens of Chechen youth who have reportedly traveled to Syria subjected to penalization. It comes as no 

surprise that most Chechen volunteers in Syria appear to come 

either from northern Georgia’s Chechen-populated Pankisi Gorge 

or from Chechen diaspora communities scattered across Europe. 

206. Emil Aslan Souleimanov and Katarina Petrtylova, “Russia’s Policy toward the Islamic State,” Middle East Policy, Vol. 22, 

Iss. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 66-78; Interview conducted by the author with 

Akhmet Yarlykapov, a Russian-Dagestani anthropologist with 
103

the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, September 2015; Souleimanov, “Globalizing Jihad? 

North Caucasians in the Syrian Civil War.”

207. Aliyev, “Conflict-related Violence Decreases in the North 

Caucasus as Fighters go to Syria.”

208. Souleimanov and Petrtylova, “Russia’s Policy toward the 

Islamic State.”

209. Ibid. 

210. Discussions by the author with officers of the Dagestani 

branch of the Russian Ministry of Interior, May 2015. 

211. Ibid. 

212. On the contrary, search-and-destroy operations in the 

mountainous terrain are usually conducted by SOBR units or, in 

the case of Chechnya, by the kadyrovtsy.

213. Interestingly, unlike the Special Purpose Mobility Units, 

Otryad Mobilny Osobogo Naznacheniya (OMON) units, the Special 

Rapid Response Units, Spetsial’nye Otryady Bystrogo Reagirovaniya 

(SOBR) consist exclusively of officers. 

214. Author’s consultations with Russian security experts and 

journalists. 

215. Gabriela Baczynska, Tom Perry, Laila Bassam and Phil 

Stewart, “Exclusive: Russian troops join combat in Syria—sources,” Reuters, September 10, 2015, available from www.reuters.

com/article/2015/09/10/us-mideast-crisis-syria-exclusive-idUSKCN0R91H720150910, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

216. “Ukraine crisis: ‘Russian special forces’ captured,” BBC 

News, May 17, 2015, available from www.bbc.com/news/worldeurope-32776198, accessed on October 15, 2015; Dzutsati, “Redeployment of Russian Forces to Ukraine Leads to Drop in Violence 

in North Caucasus.”
104

217. Valery Dzutsati, “War With Ukraine Pulls Best Russian 

Military Units From North Caucasus,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 

11, Iss. 156, September 8, 2014.

218. Quoted in ibid. 

219. Discussions by the author with Russian and Dagestani 

experts and journalists from May to September 2015. 

220. “‘Invisible War’: Russia’s Abusive Response to the 

Dagestan Insurgency,” Human Rights Watch Report, pp. 28-41. 

221. Author’s consultations with Russian and Dagestani journalists and experts, 2014-2015.

222. Souleimanov, “Russia Redeploys Army to Dagestan.”

223. Author’s consultations with Russian and Dagestani 

journalists and experts, 2014-2015. 

224. For example, all Chechen state employees are required 

to pay around 10 percent of their monthly income to the Akhmad Kadyrov Foundation, which is in fact Ramzan Kadyrov’s 

personal fund. Employees from the private sector pay around a 

third of their earnings to this fund, while business owners are required to pay as much as the half of their income. See, for instance, 

“Khodorkovsky’s NGO reveals incriminating documentary 

about Ramzan Kadyrov,” Meduza, May 25, 2015, available from 

https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/05/25/khodorkovsky-s-ngo-revealsincriminating-documentary-about-ramzan-kadyrov, accessed on October 15, 2015. Kadyrov has unlimited personal control over this 

fund and is not accountable to anyone for how he uses these 

funds. In addition, Kadyrov has routinely embezzled the money 

that Chechnya receives from the federal budget. 

225. Souleimanov, Aliyev, The Individual Disengagement of 

Avengers, Nationalists, and Jihadists. 

226. Souleimanov, “Mopping up Gimry: ‘Zachistkas’ Reach 

Dagestan.” 
105

227. Author’s consultations with Russian and Dagestani 

journalists and experts, 2014-2015.

228. Since the early-2010s, the kadyrovtsy have numbered 

approximately 7,000 fighters. 

229. Diana Alieva, “Was Dagestan’s Amnesty a Fiction?”

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, CRS Report No. 386, April 

6, 2007, available from https://iwpr.net/global-voices/was-dagestansamnesty-fiction, accessed on October 15, 2015; Huseyn Aliyev, 

“Dagestan’s Commission for Rehabilitation of Rebel Fighters: A 

Failed Experiment?” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, Vol. 15, No. 4, 

February 20, 2013, available from www.cacianalyst.org/publications/

archive/item/12658-caci-analyst-february-20-2013.html, accessed on 

October 15, 2015. 

230. “Рамазан Абдулатипов: «Необходимо усилитьпроф

илактическую работу»” (“Ramazan Abdulatipov: ‘We Need 

to Strengthen Prevention Efforts’”), RIA Dagestan, January 18, 

2014, available from www.riadagestan.ru/news/president/ramazan_

abdulatipov_neobkhodimo_usilit_profilakticheskuyu_rabotu/, 

accessed on April 14, 2015.

231. The victim of this initiation killing is usually a member 

of the local authorities or, most commonly, a police officer. Insurgents assume that a mole would be unwilling to kill one of their 

own. Discussion by the author with an officer of the Dagestani 

Ministry of Interior, May 2015. 

232. Discussion by the author with an officer of the Dagestani 

Ministry of Interior, May 2015. 

233. Discussion by the author with an officer of the Dagestani 

Ministry of Interior, May 2014.

234. Souleimanov and Petrtylova, “Russia’s Policy toward the 

Islamic State.”

235. See, for instance, Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Is Russia Training Chechen Commandos to Help Syrian Government Forces?” 

Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 12, Iss. 168, September 18, 2015. 
106

236. Mairbek Vatchagaev, “Has the Number of Chechens 

Fighting in Syria Reached Its Peak?” Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol. 

11, Iss. 14, January 23, 2014. 

237. Discussions by the author with ordinary Dagestanis as 

well as Russian and Dagestani journalists in 2015. In addition, 

Turkey’s deteriorating relations with the Islamic State and the 

greater difficulty for North Caucasian volunteers to cross the 

Turkish-Syrian border may further complicate their way to local 

jihadist groups. 

238. Such information is available only on the native North 

Caucasians residing outside the region, where the risk of penalization of jihadist veterans is low. This includes, for example, 

Chechen volunteers from northern Georgia’s Chechen-dominated Pankisi Gorge. For a first-hand analysis of the situation in the 

Pankisi area, see Grazvydas Jasutis, “Explaining the Chechen 

schism in Georgia’s Pankisi valley,” Caucasus Survey, Vol. 3, Iss. 2, 

2015, pp. 124-135. 

239. See, for instance, Dmitry Shlapentokh, “Russia Fears 

Jihadists Returning Home,” Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, 

Vol. 16, No. 9, May 7, 2014, available from www.cacianalyst.org/

publications/analytical-articles/item/12970-russia-fear-jihadistsreturning-home.html, accessed on October 15, 2015. 

240. Karina Gadjiyeva and Aida Magomedova, “Eksperty 

Schitayut Situatsiyu na Severnom Kavkaze Opasnoy i Prognoziruyut Eskalatsiyu Konflikta” (“Experts Consider the Situation in the North Caucasus Dangerous and Predict an Escalation 

of the Conflict”), Kavkazskiy uzel, January 7, 2015, available from 

www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/255197/#.VK0WYXSbdM8.twitter, 

accessed on August 15, 2015. 

241. Unlike the kadyrovtsy, the Dagestani militia—the republic’s proposed counterinsurgency force—is not intended to contain former insurgents.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General William E. Rapp

Commandant

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STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

and

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

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Author

Dr. Emil Aslan Souleimanov

Editor for Production

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