Despite its early and spectacular successes in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State (IS) has, over the last year, suffered repeated setbacks that have weakened its ability to control captured territory and implement its state-building agenda. A key aspect of IS’s strategy has been the mobilisation of supporters across Russia and the former Soviet Union. Other rebel groups in Syria have also attracted support from these areas, illustrating the need for a proper understanding of the Russian-speaking militant milieu, beyond IS’s territorial claims.
Our substantive report on Russian-speaking foreign fighters and Islamic State’s influence in the North Caucasus is an authoritative and rigorous piece of research on Russian-speaking militants linked to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.
We show that mobilisation to these conflicts has occurred in unprecedented levels. Although a significant portion of volunteers came from Dagestan, Russian citizens have also travelled from across the North Caucasus – including from areas that have not been the focal point of domestic insurgent violence – as well as from Russia. Those who travelled were not just fighters, but also women and families who performed a variety of support roles. Many of the factions and groups in Syria and Iraq retain an anti-Russian agenda, and Russia’s support of the Assad regime and indiscriminate use of violence may have exacerbated long-standing animosities.
Mobilisation to these conflicts has occurred in unprecedented levels
Our work illustrates that existing data on Russian-speaking groups is often inaccurate, and that expertise on these issues – and the threats that might emerge from them – is lacking.
Islamic State has established a patchy toehold in Russia, in particular by linking up with a much-weakened domestic insurgency – leading to a wave of incidents, including an attack in Derbent, Dagestan in December 2015, and an attack in December 2016 in Grozny, Chechnya. Other incidents attributed to IS have occurred across Russia, but many of these have been rudimentary attacks, and the terrorist threat facing Russia is not reducible to IS. This is particularly pertinent given the bombing in St Petersburg in 2017 and the wider threat associated with actors from post-Soviet countries who have carried out attacks in parts of Europe and, most recently, in the US.
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