September 7 marked the first anniversary of the death from poisoning of Doku Umarov, the Chechen field commander who abandoned the cause of an independent Chechen Republic Ichkeria in 2007 and instead proclaimed a Caucasus Emirate (IK) encompassing the entire North Caucasus.Though Umarov's death has had little impact on the military capabilities of the Islamic insurgency, it nonetheless ushered in a new stage in the evolution of the Chechen-dominated resistance into a supranational force. Reflecting a shift over the past five to seven years of the center of military activity from Chechnya to Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Dagestan, the new IK head, Aliaskhab Kebekov (Amir Ali Abu-Mukhammad) is an Avar, not a Chechen. Kebekov is a theologian and ideologue, rather than an experienced general and military strategist.
Veteran Chechen field commander Makhran Saidov asserted in video footage released last month that "any one of the Vilayet Nokhchiicho [Chechnya] fighters could have become amir in Doku's place. Don't think that we chose a brother from Dagestan for lack of a worthy candidate here or because we are weakened.... We wanted to see at the head of the Caucasus Emirate a man who is knowledgeable and God-fearing.... It's not necessary that he should be a strategist or an experienced warrior."
Even before Umarov's death, the effectiveness of the insurgents' military activity was on the decline. The insurgency has not carried out a major operation anywhere in the region since two audacious attacks in August and October 2010. What is more, it failed to deliver on Umarov's instructions to take "any measures permitted by God" to prevent the success of the Sochi Olympic games.
This failure is not likely to have been a direct consequence of Umarov's demise, given his total lack of skill as a strategist or a tactician. In that respect, the January 2013 deaths of the brothers Khuseyn and Muslim Gakayev and their elite band of fighters constituted a far more serious loss. The limited military capability of the insurgency today is primarily the result of the killing in 2006 of Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, the strategist behind both the Beslan school seizure and multiple attacks a few months earlier on security forces in Ingushetia.
Human rights watchdog Memorial attributes the marked decline to the exodus of insurgents from the area to fight in Syria.