Continued Violence in the North Caucasus
Video Transcript:
A number of attacks occurred in the Russian republic of Dagestan on May 1, including a suicide bombing in the capital, Makhachkala, that killed two and injured several others. These attacks, combined with the recent bombings in Boston by the ethnically Chechen Tsarnayev brothers, has put the spotlight on Russia's North Caucasus region.
This region is one of the most unstable in Russia and has long been difficult for Moscow to control. However, the violence and militancy is not uniform across the North Caucasus and has evolved differently in two of the region's most prominent republics -- Chechnya and Dagestan.
Chechnya has traditionally been the biggest problem for Russia in the North Caucasus since the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia fought two wars in the region, as the republic attempted to secede from Russia after the Soviet collapse and establish itself as an independent state. What started as a war of nationalist-fueled separatism quickly turned into a conflict that pulled in various Islamist and militant groups and jihadists from beyond the region.
Russia was able to eventually overcome the insurgency, mainly by splitting nationalist factions from the jihadists. Russia then installed one of the nationalist families, the Kadyrovs, into power in Chechnya and granted these factions autonomy in controlling security forces in the republic.
In Dagestan, much of the violence and militancy has been concentrated on local issues rather than having a global jihadist agenda -- even if the local groups claim otherwise. The rise of the more radical form of Salafist Islamism has come into conflict with the more traditional Sufi Islam in Dagestan, as seen by the targeting of several clerics in the region for being "too moderate".
Because of the drop in violence in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus, Dagestan now accounts for almost 60 percent of violence and attacks in the region. Dagestan is much less homogenous than Chechnya, with several ethnic groups living within the territory -- none of which has a majority in terms of population. This has made the formation of a local security force akin to Chechnya in Dagestan problematic, and in part explains why Dagestan has become more violent than Chechnya.
One of the most active and well-known militant groups that operate in both Chechnya and Dagestan is the Caucasus Emirate. This nebulous group is actually a loose collection of militants throughout the North Caucasus claiming allegiance to a former Chechen rebel commander, Doku Umarov. The mission of the Caucasus Emirate is to establish a caliphate across the North Caucasus and to resist Russian control of the region. While most of the group's activities have been in the North Caucasus region, the Caucasus Emirate did carry out major terrorist attacks in Russia proper in recent years, including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the suicide bombing inside Russia's Domodedovo
Airport in 2011.
However, in early 2012, Umarov reportedly ordered the group to halt attacks on civilian targets, and there have not been any major attacks by the group in Russia proper since. In recent weeks, the group has been careful to specify that its target remains Russia, and the leadership of the group's Dagestan front distanced itself from the Boston bombings -- stating that it was at war with Russia and not the United States. However, violence and instability will continue to be a feature for Russia in the North Caucasus region.
