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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Wahhabism on the rise in the Caucasus |
| 2005-09-23 |
| The red, white and blue stripes of the Russian flag which flies over the school in Ghimri, a village marooned amid the mountains of Dagestan, is hopelessly outnumbered by the green of another emblem: the crescent and star of Islam. Inside, Arabic is taught. Outside, women scuttle between the dusty moraines of litter and ramshackle houses, covered eye to ankle. The last time someone was caught drinking they got 40 lashes. The rule of law is sharia. Shamil, 18, crouching on a piece of discarded concrete, adjusts his Adidas cap and declares: "I want to take the path to Allah. We have to fight a jihad against the local police and non-believers." He adds: "We have sharia law here, and it should be stricter. Everything you need is laid down in the Koran." In May three men shot dead a local police chief who disturbed their attempts to blow up the three-mile tunnel which links the village through the mountains. They fled into Ghimri; the village refused to give them up. "It's the police's job to get them, not ours," said the village imam, a moderate. The growing autonomy of villages such as Ghimri is a symptom of how exposed Russia is to Islamic fundamentalism on its most southern and impoverished flank. Explosions, blamed on the "international terrorists" behind the Islamic separatist fight in neighbouring Chechnya, target police every other day. Yet at the same time, across the predominantly Muslim region, a lack of confidence in the corrupt local government has fuelled the role of Islam in small communities. Ghimri is an extreme example: a place seemingly beyond the law where Shamil happily announces jihad against police. His comments are dismissed by some as "bravado". Yet most in Ghimri say sharia law is in force, to varying degrees. The imam says thieves are forced to stand before the mosque at Friday prayers and pledge to never steal again. Some say the village - the historic birthplace of the feared Imam Shamil, who led the Caucasus in the 19th century against the tsar - has always been this way, even during the Soviet Union when they dared not close the mosques. Others, such as Nabi Salekhov, 34, who moved here a year ago from the Russian provinces because he sought a more Muslim way of life, feel Islamic law is becoming stricter in Ghimri, and more women are covering their faces. Even the Kremlin, notorious for glossing over problems in the north Caucasus, the region where Dagestan and Chechnya are based, let slip its own fears about the rise of fundamentalism in June. A leaked report written for President Vladimir Putin by his special representative to the region, Dmitri Kozak, said local leaders had corruptly enriched themselves through controlling the economy, police and courts. Mr Kozak's spokesman said the report concluded corruption had "created distrust in the population which then tries to find an alternative to the authorities. Unfortunately they find it in extremists." As if the combustive mixture of intense poverty and corruption were not enough, the catalyst of Islamic militancy has in the past six months brought violence threatening to engulf the whole north Caucasus. A sharp rise in militant attacks has led Dagestan to resemble war-torn Chechnya. Forty police and an unknown number of soldiers and civilians have died since January, the government says. "There practically already is civil war in Dagestan," said analyst Alexei Malashenko. "Practically every day [militants] kill people - ministers, policemen. This is a complete crisis." Sergei Ignatchenko, spokesman for the Russian security service, the FSB, blamed "international terrorists". "Their task is to destabilise Dagestan, to create panic and chaos to permit Islamic fundamentalists in power." He said the rise in fundamentalism was a global phenomenon, but also spreading in Russia in the Volga region, and even Siberia. "We notice their traces practically in all the regions." Russian media now regularly reports from across the north Caucasus the ambushes, blasts, or brutal arrests that three years ago were confined to Chechnya. "In some north Caucasus republics they happen just once a month, but in Dagestan it's every day," said Mr Malashenko. Wider unrest in Dagestan could prove bloodier. Not only is there a huge gap between the republic's tiny ruling elite and its young discarded poor, but the republic has for decades been a peaceful home to 33 different ethnic groups. Recently differences have helped shape an internal political struggle. While Dagestan president Magomedali Magomedov is from the Dargin minority, his main rival, the mayor of the second-largest town, Khasav Yurt, hails from the main Avars. The symbiotic cycle seen in Chechnya, of militant attacks fomenting brutal reprisals by the authorities, has been replicated in Dagestan. As in Chechnya, young men have started disappearing, abducted by masked men, usually the military or police. There are no official figures. Many Dagestanis buy their relative's release from police custody for up to £3,000. But some disappear for good. Malik Shurpayev, 25, a regular visitor to the mosque, was abducted by masked men en route to a boxing session in the capital, Makhachkala, in December. His father has since heard only a rumour that he was seen in a jail in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Some emerge from custody brutalised, like 43-year-old Omar Alivov, abducted on July 5, who was given electric shocks to make him talk. "They said that if I did not talk, they'd hand me over to the Russian military in Chechnya who would make me talk," he said. His wrists were raw and his fingers red from electric burns. One defence lawyer estimated at least 30 such cases since May. Many say police brutality fuels militant activity. The folklore eulogy of militant leader Rasul Makasharipov, 34, killed by police in July, is often cited as an example. A friend of the militant said Makasharipov had been granted an amnesty by the Russian military in 2000. Yet he was repeatedly arrested by the FSB and beaten, leaving him no choice but to go back to his old paymasters, the "Arab side", the militants. The Dagestani interior ministry denies claims it tortured detainees. Minutes later, spokesman Abdulmanap Musayev played a video of a suspect confessing on local TV that Makasharipov told him the Koran sanctioned killing the police. At the end of a week which claimed five police, three soldiers and one official, Mr Musayev asked: "If you kill all the police, then what?" The answer perhaps lies in the anarchy of Chechnya, or in the hills, places such as Ghimri, where Islam is less about ideology and more about rebelling against the state. In Ghimri, Mr Salekhov says: "We have more than enough young men here to fight jihad." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 Sounds like a bunch of fairly idiotic useless violent tools who've been herded in the direction of "jihad" TM by a little bit of encouragement. |
| Posted by: MunkarKat 2005-09-23 09:44 |
| #3 Caucasians, why do they ... never mind. |
| Posted by: VAMark 2005-09-23 07:46 |
| #2 Stupid caucasians. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-09-23 07:36 |
| #1 Shamil, 18, crouching on a piece of discarded concrete, adjusts his Adidas cap and declares: "I want to take the path to Allah. We have to fight a jihad against the local police and non-believers." He adds: "We have sharia law here, and it should be stricter. Everything you need is laid down in the Koran." "...I mean, how ya gonna have sharia if ya can't blow stuff up? Cheeze....." Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2005-09-23 07:03 |