In Syria, Russia chasing Chechens once again

MOSCOW: While Russian President Vladimir Putin’s air campaign in Syria may have other aims, one result seems to be that it is hitting Islamists from Russia’s Caucasus, say analysts.
High on the list of places Russia appears to have targeted are positions held by the Al-Nusra Front—an al-Qaeda associate with a high concentration of fighters from Chechnya, Dagestan and Muslim ex-Soviet nations in Central Asia.
Russia’s entry last week into the Syrian conflict is the country’s first major military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the collapse of Communism.
At the weekend, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the mission aimed at protecting Russia itself.
”It’s better to do it abroad rather than fight terrorism inside the country,” he said.
The presence of Islamists from the Caucasus is not the decisive factor for unleashing Russia’s military might, said Syria specialist Thomas Pierret from the University of Edinburgh.
Even so, the presence of Chechens on the ground effectively makes it “the third round of Russian-Chechen conflict,” Pierret said. Moscow fought two bloody wars against Chechen separatists between 1994-96 and in the early 2000s, bringing the breakaway Russian region under the capital’s control.
But it failed to stem the spread of an Islamist insurgency into the surrounding regions, particularly Dagestan and Ingushetia.
Fighters originating from the Caucasus are believed to have first appeared in Syria in summer 2012, notably at the battle of Aleppo.
The men have a reputation for being good warriors and are dubbed “Chechens” by locals even if they come from elsewhere in the Caucasus, a region where Muslims overwhelmingly adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam.
Now there are “at least 2,000 fighters” from Chechnya, Dagestan and other Caucasus regions who operate in Jund al-Sham al-Shishan, alongside Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra front, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdel Raman told AFP. “They are concentrated in Idlib, Aleppo, and Latakia provinces,” he said.
These are the northwestern regions of Syria where Russia’s campaign has been concentrated since being launched on September 30.
Other groups with a strong presence of Caucasus fighters include Ajnad Kavkaz (Soldiers of the Caucasus) in Idlib and Latakia, and the Jaish al-Muhajireen in Aleppo, which also includes Uzbeks and Tajiks and is split into Al-Qaeda and IS-loyal factions.