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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| The Rise and Fall of Foreign Fighters in Chechnya |
| 2006-01-30 |
| It's pretty good, if you can read past the usual Jamestown Foundation efforts to split hairs between al-Qaeda and the Chechen Killer Korps ... The recent killing of Saudi Sheikh Abu Omar Muhammad al-Sayf, a religious adviser to the Chechen resistance since 1995, heralded the demise of the first generation of Arab mujahideen in Chechnya. Their presence has had a profound effect upon the ongoing war in the Russian North Caucasus, with Chechnya widely viewed as another jihadi front controlled by al-Qaeda. The following aims to contextualize Chechnya's "Arab" fighters. Chechen and North Caucasian links with the Middle East stretch back to Russian imperial history when these peoples migrated in the thousands to modern day Jordan, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. While in the latter three countries the Chechens were assimilated over time, in Jordan today there still exists a unique community of around 8,000 Chechens who have preserved their language and cultural traditions. After 1990, dozens of Jordanian-Chechens traveled to see their newly independent homeland. Among them was Sheikh Ali Fathi al-Shishani, an elderly veteran of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and an ethnic Jordanian-Chechen. In 1993, Fathi formed a Salafi Islamic Jamaat consisting of scores of young indigenous Chechens and some Jordanian-Chechens. Following the onset of the Russo-Chechen war in December 1994, he was instrumental in facilitating the recruitment of Arab fighters from Afghanistan. Among those he personally invited was Samir Salih Abdallah al-Suwaylim, better known as "Khattab." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |