BEYOND SYRIA IRAQ

ANNA BORSHCHEVSKAYA
and deportations of Circassians that occurred on this very site. Furthermore,
during the Olympics, the Russian government for the first time banned the
commemoration of Stalin’s deportations of the Chechens. The commemoration
date notably fell on the last day of the Sochi Olympics, February 23,
and the Russian authorities wanted nothing to dampen the festivities of the
games. Earlier, the Chechen government, headed by Putin-installed warlord
Ramzan Kadyrov, ordered a demolition of a memorial to the deportations. It
is easy to see why these actions only encouraged radicalization.
FOREIGN FIGHTERS AND MOSCOW’S FAILED POLICIES
Anecdotal evidence suggests the main contribution of the Caucasus to IS
core is foreign fighters. Beyond this, the relationship between the two is
unclear. IS recently took credit for several small-scale attacks within Russia.
Yet IS core does not appear to provide direct orders to the Caucasus wilayah
nor any funding.
Exactly how many individuals from the North Caucasus have joined IS
also remains somewhat unclear—experts cite numbers between two thousand
and five thousand but add that some come from the Chechen diaspora
in Europe, and that not all who left for Syria necessarily have joined
IS. Putin claimed in the fall of 2015 that as many as seven thousand joined.
Precise counts aside, the trend is clearly one of steep increase in the number
of Muslims from the North Caucasus joining IS. Chechens in particular
are surrounded by an aura of legends of their being the fiercest fighters.
While several have, indeed, held senior positions within IS, many come from
the European diaspora. They are young and inexperienced, and, unlike the
Chechens from the region who have been hardened by years of resistance to
Moscow, they do not know war.
IS utilizes several recruitment tactics inside Russia—indeed, Russian has
emerged as the third most popular language for IS propaganda and the third
most spoken language within the Islamic State. IS now publishes a magazine in
Russian, Istok (The Source), and to date it has put out four issues. Most recruiters
are outside the region, and much recruitment happens in real time through
YouTube videos (many of which quickly get taken down) and social media.
Yet experts suggest that, particularly when it comes to Muslims in the North
Caucasus, recruitment efforts play a far smaller part than the Russian government’s
harsh, repressive measures in ultimately driving Muslims in the Caucasus
to seek out IS. It is unclear, for example, how many people even read Istok.
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