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Arab jihadists emerge in Caucasus war
Published: Oct. 26, 2010
AMMAN, Jordan, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- As Islamic militants escalate their war
against the Russians in Dagestan, Ingushetia and other Caucasian
republics, there is evidence that Arab jihadists, particularly
Jordanians, are playing a leading role, as they did in the Chechen wars.
In recent months, Jordanian newspapers and Web sites have reported the
death of several Jordanians fighting in Chechnya.
But it is the growing links between the Islamist fighters in the
Caucasus and influential clerics in the Hashemite Kingdom and its
environs who preach global jihad that are probably more important.
The well-known Jordanian jihadist ideologue Sheik Abu Mohammed
al-Maqdisi has gathered a following among the Caucasian Islamists, even
corresponding with Arabic-speaking commanders who want to shift the
conflict from a nationalist struggle into part of the global jihad.
Maqdisi is a powerful influence in Arab jihadist circles and since 2009
"has become an active promoter and propagandist of the jihadist movement
in the North Caucasus," says Murad Batal al-Shishani of the Jamestown
Foundation, a Washington think tank that tracks global terrorism.
Maqdisi achieved notoriety as the spiritual mentor of the ferocious
al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zaraqwi.
Zarqawi, a Jordanian Sunni who fought in Afghanistan, forged al-Qaida in
Iraq into the most bloodthirsty jihadist organization fighting the
Americans after the 2003 invasion. His forces slaughtered hundreds of
people, including rival Shiites, until he was killed in a U.S. airstrike
June 7, 2006.
His ruthless ferocity made him a hero among Jordanian Islamists and
inspired several major plots in the kingdom. These included a thwarted
2004 chemical attack on Jordan's Intelligence Directorate in Amman.
These activists are "a new generation of Salafi-jihadists in the region
who can be described as neo-Zarqawists," al-Shishani noted in a recent
analysis.
"These young militants consider themselves the inheritors of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi's legacy in the Levant."
Many have gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight, among them Humam
Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the suicide bomber who set off his device
inside a CIA base in Afghanistan in December 2009, killing seven CIA
personnel.
Most of these activists are centered on the cities of Zarqa, Zarqawi's
hometown east of Amman, and Irbid in northern Jordan.
Anas Khalil Khadir, a 24-year-old Jordanian reported to have been killed
in Chechnya in early June, was from Zarqa. He abandoned his medical
engineering studies at university there to go to Chechnya.
A few days after Khadir's death was reported, newspapers announced the
death of another Jordanian in Chechnya. They said Yasser Ammara,
described as "a prominent Jordanian-born warlord," was one of nine
militants killed fighting Russian forces in the forested mountains of
the Vedeno region. He had been in Chechnya since 2000.
In recent months, jihadist Web sites and Internet forums have
increasingly focused on the escalating conflict across the Caucasus,
several years after the Russians crushed insurgents in the Second
Chechen war.
The revival of jihadist interest in the region "comes in the context of
two strategies that al-Qaida and affiliates Salfist-jihadist groups are
implementing: seeking safe havens and creating a grassroots jihad that
will sustain them," al-Shishani wrote in a recent analysis.
Arab jihadists, mostly veterans of the 1979-89 war against the Soviet
army in Afghanistan, have played a prominent role in the North Caucasus
since 1995 when the First Chechen War broke out.
They fought under the leadership of separatist leader Dzhokar Dudayev,
killed like Zarqawi in a missile strike in 1996.
The most prominent of these Arabs was a commander known as Emir Khattab,
an Afghan veteran whose real name was believed to be Omar Ibn
al-Khattab. He was reputed to have been born in Saudi Arabia to a
Jordanian father and a Circassian mother. At age 16, he went to
Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin
Laden. He is also believed to have fought in Tajikistan and Bosnia.
In Chechnya, he came one of the jihadists' most successful combat
commanders and was wounded several times leading his own private army of
Arabs, Turks and other foreign fighters.
He was killed by Russia's Federal Security Service, the post-Cold War
successor of the KGB, on March 19, 2002, with a poisoned letter. Chechen
sources said it was coated with "a fast-acting nerve agent, possibly
sarin or a derivative."
From: A. Papazian
Published: Oct. 26, 2010
AMMAN, Jordan, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- As Islamic militants escalate their war
against the Russians in Dagestan, Ingushetia and other Caucasian
republics, there is evidence that Arab jihadists, particularly
Jordanians, are playing a leading role, as they did in the Chechen wars.
In recent months, Jordanian newspapers and Web sites have reported the
death of several Jordanians fighting in Chechnya.
But it is the growing links between the Islamist fighters in the
Caucasus and influential clerics in the Hashemite Kingdom and its
environs who preach global jihad that are probably more important.
The well-known Jordanian jihadist ideologue Sheik Abu Mohammed
al-Maqdisi has gathered a following among the Caucasian Islamists, even
corresponding with Arabic-speaking commanders who want to shift the
conflict from a nationalist struggle into part of the global jihad.
Maqdisi is a powerful influence in Arab jihadist circles and since 2009
"has become an active promoter and propagandist of the jihadist movement
in the North Caucasus," says Murad Batal al-Shishani of the Jamestown
Foundation, a Washington think tank that tracks global terrorism.
Maqdisi achieved notoriety as the spiritual mentor of the ferocious
al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zaraqwi.
Zarqawi, a Jordanian Sunni who fought in Afghanistan, forged al-Qaida in
Iraq into the most bloodthirsty jihadist organization fighting the
Americans after the 2003 invasion. His forces slaughtered hundreds of
people, including rival Shiites, until he was killed in a U.S. airstrike
June 7, 2006.
His ruthless ferocity made him a hero among Jordanian Islamists and
inspired several major plots in the kingdom. These included a thwarted
2004 chemical attack on Jordan's Intelligence Directorate in Amman.
These activists are "a new generation of Salafi-jihadists in the region
who can be described as neo-Zarqawists," al-Shishani noted in a recent
analysis.
"These young militants consider themselves the inheritors of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi's legacy in the Levant."
Many have gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight, among them Humam
Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the suicide bomber who set off his device
inside a CIA base in Afghanistan in December 2009, killing seven CIA
personnel.
Most of these activists are centered on the cities of Zarqa, Zarqawi's
hometown east of Amman, and Irbid in northern Jordan.
Anas Khalil Khadir, a 24-year-old Jordanian reported to have been killed
in Chechnya in early June, was from Zarqa. He abandoned his medical
engineering studies at university there to go to Chechnya.
A few days after Khadir's death was reported, newspapers announced the
death of another Jordanian in Chechnya. They said Yasser Ammara,
described as "a prominent Jordanian-born warlord," was one of nine
militants killed fighting Russian forces in the forested mountains of
the Vedeno region. He had been in Chechnya since 2000.
In recent months, jihadist Web sites and Internet forums have
increasingly focused on the escalating conflict across the Caucasus,
several years after the Russians crushed insurgents in the Second
Chechen war.
The revival of jihadist interest in the region "comes in the context of
two strategies that al-Qaida and affiliates Salfist-jihadist groups are
implementing: seeking safe havens and creating a grassroots jihad that
will sustain them," al-Shishani wrote in a recent analysis.
Arab jihadists, mostly veterans of the 1979-89 war against the Soviet
army in Afghanistan, have played a prominent role in the North Caucasus
since 1995 when the First Chechen War broke out.
They fought under the leadership of separatist leader Dzhokar Dudayev,
killed like Zarqawi in a missile strike in 1996.
The most prominent of these Arabs was a commander known as Emir Khattab,
an Afghan veteran whose real name was believed to be Omar Ibn
al-Khattab. He was reputed to have been born in Saudi Arabia to a
Jordanian father and a Circassian mother. At age 16, he went to
Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin
Laden. He is also believed to have fought in Tajikistan and Bosnia.
In Chechnya, he came one of the jihadists' most successful combat
commanders and was wounded several times leading his own private army of
Arabs, Turks and other foreign fighters.
He was killed by Russia's Federal Security Service, the post-Cold War
successor of the KGB, on March 19, 2002, with a poisoned letter. Chechen
sources said it was coated with "a fast-acting nerve agent, possibly
sarin or a derivative."
From: A. Papazian