A united front of threats: the Islamic state from the Caucasus to China
The incoming reports about the accession of individual terrorist organizations to the Islamic State (IG) are a real cause for concern. In particular, the media appeared information about the transition under the wing of the IG so-called. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which until then had been affiliated with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Before 2002, the IMU was located in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, with headquarters in Kandahar, and after the invasion of the Americans, it changed its deployment to Pakistani Waziristan [1].As a result of the interaction of these terrorist organizations, there is a high risk of the return of trained militants who have real military experience under the guidance of sufficiently competent IG commanders from the territory of Syria or the same Iraq. Given the active infiltration into the structures of the Baathist IG from the former Saddam army and security agencies, there are plenty of commanders in the ranks of the spreading Caliphate who are able to train and pass on their experience to new recruits. In addition, the financial capabilities of the IG allow him to attract to his side and professionals from abroad. In particular, information about the presence in the ranks of the IG of an officer of the French special services, allegedly the General Directorate of External Security - Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE) [2], recently passed. Due to the specifics of the topic touched at the moment, it is impossible to unequivocally say whether the information published in this regard is true or not, but such cases are not uncommon in stories intelligence services. It is known that for quite a long period of time Syria was actually a French colony, and certain ties with the Fifth Republic remained there. By the way, among the instructors who prepared the militants, who are still fighting against the government forces of Syria, French experts [3] were noticed. The fact that some of the “oppositionists” trained by American, British and French instructors turned to the side of the IG opened up a number of possibilities. The presence of agents of some Western countries in the ranks of the IG cannot be ruled out, although it is not possible to estimate its scale. However, the presence of trained militants in it means the possibility of the existence of potential communication channels between representatives of the Western special services and the leadership of the Islamists. By means of these connections, a professional is more than actually offering his services. This version is supported by the fact that a significant, if not overwhelming, part of the contacts on the part of the initiators takes place on a material basis, and the huge financial resources of the IG make it possible to recruit and pay for specialists of the highest level. Thus, we can draw an important conclusion: the acquisition of financial autarky by the Islamists, mainly due to robbery, oil trade, weapons and people (in fact the slave trade), makes it possible not only to recruit simple recruits into their ranks, but also high-class professionals from various armies and special services of the world.
Moreover, the self-sufficiency of the IG financially leads to an important consequence. If the terrorist groups joining it have the same goals or their interaction is mutually beneficial, then independence in the sources of funding of the IG acquires enormous significance. For leaders of the IMU and other organizations, ideological closeness and similarity of the tasks set with the goals of an IG independent of anyone means a significant limitation of third-party influence on them. There should be a clarification. Control over the financing of a terrorist organization gives a powerful lever of influence in the hands of its sponsor. It is by controlling the cash flow that sponsors seek to direct the activities of terrorists in the right direction for themselves in solving their local or geopolitical tasks. With the right approach to the processing of consciousness, the masses of fanatics can be sent in a given vector. If the situation changes and you need to forget about the enemy of yesterday and reorient to another, then the propaganda machine will work in a new way. What will be the mechanism for switching to a higher priority goal - it does not matter whether it is a provocation, a change in the rhetoric of controlled radical preachers, whom the sponsors will give the necessary command, or all of the above. For an organization not interested in being a toy in the hands of others, such a fate is categorically unacceptable. IG self-sufficiency largely means its subjectivity and substantial autonomy in decision-making from external players, since money was and remains the main condition here. Hence, structures like the IMU, having decided to move to the IG camp and agreeing to submit to the new owner, count on minimal influence from external factors on their decision-making. Considerable independence, stability and predictability of the Caliphate for the stated purposes, as well as the usual means and methods of achieving them, subject to ideological proximity, are important for the organizations adjacent to it, as they allow them to act according to the initially chosen path, even under the leadership of the Caliphate, but without looking at the wishes of the former curators, whose interests may be completely different.
Probably, the leaders of the IMU, having found an overlord in the IG, see a lot more opportunities to implement their plans within its structure, rather than being in the position of junior partner of Al-Qaida, the Taliban or continuing to receive money from the Pakistan Inter-Agency Intelligence - Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The actions of the IMU in the interests of these structures did not guarantee compliance with their own goals. However, once a step has been taken in the direction of joining the IG, it means that it has been verified and thought out, and all the costs associated with the subordination of the new leadership are less significant than the vulnerability of depending on their past sponsors. However, the above does not exclude the possibility of a banal diversification of sources of funding, being in a subordinate position with the Caliphate. It is likely that this form of existence of the IMU seems to be more productive for its leaders.
In addition, there is a risk of other terrorist organizations operating in different regions of the mainland joining the IG for the same reasons. In particular, some experts pointed out the possibility of joining the Imarat Kavkaz [4] IG, all the more it is known that among the high-ranking representatives of the new Caliphate there are people from the North Caucasus, in particular, the emir and in fact, the war minister of the organization red-bearded Abu Umar al-Shishani (born Tarkhan Batirashvili). This person close to the caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is an ethnic Chechen by origin and it is very likely that he has contacts with the current terrorist underground in the territory of the North Caucasus republics. Summarizing the messages of recent months, a certain trend is observed. So representatives of the IG have already sounded threats against Russia with the intention to “liberate” Chechnya and the Caucasus [5]. The leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has already given a harsh response to the Islamists: "I declare with full responsibility that the one who came to mind to threaten Russia will be destroyed where he did. We will not wait until he sits at the helm of the aircraft, he will go where his brothers Khattab, Abu Walid and other Western envoys of the West are rotting "[6]. As commissioned by 5 in October in Grozny, on the Day of the City and Kadyrov's birth, a terrorist attack occurred in which five police officers died and twelve more were injured [7]. At the moment, it is impossible to unequivocally assert that there is a connection between the statements of Islamists and Kadyrov’s reaction, but the short time between the response of the President of Chechnya and the terrorist attack on such a symbolic day cannot but draw attention to itself.
In the final part of the article, the author draws attention to the following detail. IG through its connections and international content under the strict leadership of the Caliph al-Baghdadi and ex-Baathist professionals actually sets itself up with various groups operating in the regions of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. As a result, the IG has the ability to control and coordinate the Islamists over a vast territory, which is well within their characteristic expansionism and extensiveness, by including all new territories. Therefore, when assessing the actions and statements of the IG, one should pay attention to the fact that Islamist groups that pass to him into submission are located on the territory close to both Russia and China, and sometimes are inside them. Also, the proliferation of ISIS in Iraq poses a danger to Iran, which has already managed to respond to it, sending assistance to the incumbent authorities in Baghdad in the form of the Al-Quds special unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) under the command of Brigadier General Qasem Suleymani [8].
With regard to China and the Central Asian region, close relations should be noted that the IMU organization maintains with the Islamists in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People’s Republic of China, in particular with the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (IDTB) and the Lobnor Tigers. In relation to the first, the Uzbek fundamentalists have already provided military and material assistance. Consequently, there is a risk of increased instability and the intensification of separatists in western China. On the territory of the republics that are part of the Russian Federation, the Imarat Kavkaz conducts its subversive activities, which was discussed above. In connection with the above, attention is drawn to the fact of the activation of the IG in the regions that are of tremendous importance for the three strategic opponents of the United States - Russia, Iran and China. The answer to the question of whether it happens by chance or not is ambiguous. In the first case, if the initiative belongs to the leadership of the IG, then this desire for expansion is solely a consequence of the essence of its existence through the seizure of new territories. The fact that the leaders of the IG are not supporters of cosmopolitan views can be seen in the example of their determination to create a new state, therefore their Caliphate is not mythical, but quite specific, which attracts all new supporters to it. Another question is how great are the claims of the leaders of the IG and how far should the Caliphate spread, in their opinion. If it includes both the Caucasus and Central Asia with a part of China, then attracting and pulling over to your side local terrorist organizations makes sense as a preparation of conditions for expansion. Having gained combat experience and received funding, the activity of such organizations will increase significantly compared with the previous period of their activities. As can be seen in this option, there is a two-way traffic, where each side at this stage receives its benefits. For the IS, it consists in replenishing its ranks with new volunteers and increasing its influence on the situation in Central Asia, when some of the IMU fighters will begin to go back. For the IMU itself, a source of funding is obtained from an organization that is as close as possible to it in the ideological sense, which allows it to act without taking into account the views of its former patrons.
The second option requires considering the situation from a wider angle. If we take the interest of Washington in the form of creating zones of instability around its strategic opponents, then in this strategy the emergence of the IG on the geopolitical battle scene turned out to be very useful. In assessing the likelihood of a new Caliphate acting in the interests of the United States, it is necessary to rely on the degree of its control by the Americans. Moreover, based on the analysis of the situation of the last weeks, it seems that if such control is present, it is small. Moreover, the rather chaotic attempts to bring to the business of curbing the IG of their NATO allies, as well as some countries of the Middle East, do not look like the actions of a power holding in its hands the grooves of government. However, if we take into account some aspects of the strategy used by the Obama administrations [9], the problem of low controllability of the IG is not as great as it might seem. Then the spread of the influence of the IG on the regions sensitive to US geostrategic opponents can really be not only an initiative of jihadists.
Thus, there is reason to state the gradual formation of a threat in the form of the emergence of a broad and united front against Russia and some other countries subjected to systemic pressure and attacks from Washington and its satellites. In this regard, it is extremely important to find effective opposition to the increased activity of terrorist organizations and bandit underground fundamentalists not only in the North Caucasus, but also to oppose them with active cooperation with the competent authorities of China, Iran and the countries of the Central Asian region, whose stability is of strategic importance for Russia.
- Konstantin Strigunov
- http://cassad.net/analytics/768-edinyy-front-ugroz-islamskoe-gosudarstvo-ot-kavkaza-do-kitaya.html
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