Instead he chose to send yet one more retired general to the region with orders "to clarify the situation and put it to order." Well, bucko, that just hasn't happened. Nor is it likely to.
The local defensive insurgent agenda which originally powered the jihadists has now been supplemented, if not totally replaced, by the all inclusive, ever expansive one of global jihad. This spells even more trouble for the Guys In The Kremlin and their subordinates in the KGB, oops! the Geek meant to write FSB, to say nothing of the army.
The leadership of the self-organizing Islamist insurgents is now comprised of genuine True Believers in political Islam. Men such as Doku Umarov may be local boys by birth and ancestry but they are globalists in their Islamism guided by clerics such as the Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdidi. Other key figures such as the East Siberian born Alexander Tikomirov now renamed Said Buryatski have spent years studying Islam, Arabic, and the fine art or craft of waging jihad abroad. Buryatski, for example, lived in Egypt for years.
A couple of weeks back FSB special operations personnel killed a genuine al-Qaeda operational level commander, Makhmoud Mokhammad Shaaban, in Dagestan. Shaaban was both an Egyptian national and, according to FSB, the man behind several shootings and suicide bombings. This development pleased FSB as it gave credence to its long held position that the "rebels" in the Caucasus were al-Qaeda inspired and directed.
There have been other signs showing the increased importance of global jihad. An excellent example is the proliferation of "martyrdom" videos on the assorted Islamist websites. This was unheard of only a short time back. In some of the videos all of which feature flags of the North Caucasus "Emirate," the martyrs-to-be are heard chanting in Arabic. And, upon translation, some of what is being said tracks back to the words of al-Maqdidi, the Man Of The Faith who lives in the Kingdom of Jordan.
The prolific Jordanian cleric has been a person of interest to US and other Western intelligence agencies for quite a while now given his relations with and influence upon Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahri. The man is an intellectual heavyweight in the global Islamist movement and must not be underrated in his effect upon the initially rather localized defensive insurgency.
Putin, Medvedev, and Company have tried to continue the failed policy of pretending that somehow Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus are not part of Russia. This pretense has been driven by a desire to assure the conflict is contained to the region.
Russia has at least twenty million Muslims in its population. Only half of these live in the North Caucasus. This means the insurgents have a very real potential to horizontally escalate their war with the Kremlin. And, the Kremlin knows this.
As the hold of global Islamist jihad grows tighter and stronger within the North Caucasus insurgent groups, the drive to carry jihad deeper and stronger into the heartland of Mother Russia will grow apace. At the same time as the technical proficiency of the insurgents increases--as it must given that combat experience in Afghanistan is being transmitted by returning Caucasians--the walls of the Kremlin and the pavement of the square in front will be covered by Russian blood.
Vladimir The Robust has already missed his last, best chance at suppressing the insurgency. The Russian government and "organs of state security" failed to separate the local grievance motivated sheep. Now the power and appeal of the Islamist message assures that the goats are proliferating as the sheep die out.
Iran exists as a complicating factor for Putin, et al. The mullahs can, should they so decide, provide assistance to the jihadi of the North Caucasus. The border with Iran is even more porous than that between the US and Mexico--and we all know how permeable The Great Fence of the Southwest is. Improved munitions such as explosively formed penetrators would constitute a major enhancement of jihadi capabilities.
At the same time the Kremlin must be aware of just how easily weapons and munitions up to and including those of a mass destruction nature can be acquired within Russia itself provided the buyer has the money. Money need not be an issue given the growth in drug usage in Russia and the role Russia plays as a point of transit between the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the markets of Europe.
This reality implies a motive for Russian understanding and cooperation with the US and its allies in the Afghan war. Russia would benefit greatly from a military success on the part of the US in that venue.
In any event the initiative rests firmly with the Islamist jihadists of the North Caucasus as of this moment. Unless the Kremlin acts as though the region is part of Russia and that the conflict can spread rapidly and in an undesirably bloody fashion whenever and wherever the jihadists choose, the war can only favor the insurgents.
Putin, Medvedev, and the rest have a choice to make. It is not a nice choice. They can continue to putter about waiting for the Islamists to strike. Or, they can reprise many episodes in Russian history and create a desert named "peace."
It is nice to see that the US is not alone in making very tough choices.
1 comment:
This has the potential of being a real interesting situation.
The Islamists think they can defeat the Soviets (uh, Russians) because they kicked them out of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Soviets think they can control the Islamists because of their experiences with terrorists a generation or two ago.
The war in Chechnya is not being resolved, its continuation is necessary for internal consumption to justify continued tyranny by the Kremlin.
But things have changed.
Now the Islamists have become suicidal, no longer amenable to the threat of death as past generations. Add the nihilistic attitude common among Russian citizens today, and the picture given in Ezekiel 38:21 (read also the context) becomes a real possibility. Something happens in the Middle East, the Soviets send in their troops along with their allies from Iran, Turkey, Syria, Libya, and other Islamist countries, then some sort of falling out occurs so that they end up fighting among themselves, and wiping themselves out. This prophecy hasn't been fulfilled yet, will it happen in our day?
Then in another post you tell about the U.S. Congress pushing the Turks into the arms of the Islamists and their ally Russia.
We live in interesting times.
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