Arch of Instability
While speaking of the 'arch of instability' in the post-Soviet space, a belt across Russia's Southern underbelly, one should pay attention to Tajikistan which analysts have dubbed the geo-strategic nerve of the Orient.
A year after proclaiming independence, the republic was engulfed by the flames of armed clashes between the irreconcilable Islamic opposition and government troops which were backed by Russian border guards and military. Several weeks before the Tajik armed clashes were to start, the government of Najibullah had been toppled by the Taleban in Afghanistan. There arose the threat of Uzbekistan, Turkmenia and Kyrgyzia being drawn into the conflict. Ethnic and clan strife soared.
Just like in the Caucasus, developments in Central Asia soon took on a geopolitical tinge. The Soviet Union's collapse provoked a new round of the global and regional powers' struggle for spheres of influence in the region.
The authors of the already mentioned article "Arch of Instability" in Nezavisimaya Gazeta (December 4, 1996) stress that Tajikistan is more than a 'hot spot' in the chain of conflicts along the Moslem arch of instability. The Pamirs and environs are now a metaphysical nerve of the planet, which, once touched, may trigger unpredictable geopolitical consequences for the fate of the world.
This is no mystification, for well known is the formula, which lies at the base of the majority of religious postulates: "Changing the laws of Nature is beyond human capacities, but knowing the laws of Nature helps avoid many a misfortune." It is only natural, therefore that modern concepts are built both on principles, which are predetermined by Nature, landscape and geography and by sacral, mythological categories incorporated into the material, Earthly world.
The authors of the article in NG believe that in this context, the great Tajik cities of Bukhara and Samarkand have been not only an organic frontier between the world of a unique civilisation and that of nomadic barbarity, but gateways of sorts for the mutual penetration of two mentalities, two philosophies. The Great Silk Road passed through Bukhara to be more than a channel for commodities exchange but a venue for ideas, knowledge, a thoroughfare which Buddhists, Manichaeans, Nestorians, Israelites, Moslems and Christians travelled alike.
It is well known that the single Indo-Iranian ethno-cultural block, having generated some of the oldest global civilisations, continues to exert appreciable influence on the development of today's humankind.
The Pamirs and environs today rivet the attention of Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Experts hold that Tajikistan may join regional military-political alliances of an anti-Russian or anti-West inclination, in particular those based on pan-Islamism. Unifying trends of a pan-Islamic or pan-Turkic origin continue to dominate in the political circles of Central Asian and Mideastern states. The plans the regional super-powers, the initiators of the 'all-Islamic unification,' devise allocate a pride of place to Tajikistan in an effort to provide a religious basis for the Central Asian nations to stand apart on.
Historically, the single Iranian-Tajik ethnos was distributed in three states-Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan-as a result of multiple invasions and centuries of peaceful ethnic relationships and assimilation with Turkic, Mongoloid and Kipchak tribes who had travelled to the oases of East Turkestan, Khorezm and Khorosan from the Northern and Eastern steppes of Central Asia. Modern Tajik historians note that, having subjugated the indigenous peoples of Central Asia, Turks conducted the policy of actively Turkifying Tajiks and ousting them to the mountainous parts of their mother proto-country. Tajiks fought for ethnic survival throughout 16th to 18th centuries. It was only when the Russian Empire began its cultural, geographic and economic expansion to the Moslem Orient that the process of Turkification and demise of their statehood slowed down somewhat. The coming of Russia to Central Asia in the 19th century proved to be largely beneficial for the local population's life, both culturally and socio-economically.
The Northern and Eastern parts of latter-day Tajikistan were made a part of the Turkestan Gubernia. Under a treaty with Russia, Gorny Badakhshan on the Pamirs became a protectorate of Russia, a status, which is legitimate to this day. The Central and Southern parts, so-called East Bukhara, were owned by the Bukhara Emirate, which had special allied relations with the Tsarist Russia. The troops of the Turkestan Military District protected villages, centres, historic architectural monuments and roads in areas populated by Tajiks.
Thus, a large Cossack unit was stationed in an ancient fort built in the time of Alexander the Great's campaigns. Every Monday, which is Dushanbe in Tajik, a bazaar would gather round the garrison, and people from throughout the Pamirs would settle near the fort. This is where Dushanbe, Tajikistan's capital city, stands today.
Many experts believe that Russia should preserve its presence in the Region. It should protect its interests in the area of the Pamirs, a historic nerve of the planet, which has at all times been the key to security in the Orient. This is especially true now that the 'Islamic NATO' led by Turkey and Pakistan is pining to approach the Russian frontiers. Also, the real NATO's Partnership For Peace programme is actively implemented in Central Asia. Now that Pakistan has the nuclear bomb, the shape of the Eastern flank of the Moslem 'arch of instability' has changed beyond recognition.
But playing in the 'Islamic field' is hard. It has already been noted that the Islamic factor is internally variable and contradictory. While comparing conflicts in the Caucasus, in particular in Chechnya and Tajikistan, experts tend to highlight the aspect of competing ethnic groups and clans.
Igor Rotar has undertaken to try and compare the Tajik and Chechen conflicts from this viewpoint in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on May 15, 1997.
Just like many other researchers, he notes that the civil war in Tajikistan has been primarily a war between several ethnic groups of Tajiks, which had failed to form a single nation. The presence of clans had been felt even in Soviet times.
The power in the republic has long and invariably been in the hands of North Tajiks coming from Leninabad. Ever since the late 1930s, all first secretaries of the Tajik Communist party's Central Committee came from those parts. In May 1992, the opposition, composed predominantly of the mountainous Tajiks of Karategin and the Pamirs, attempted to take the power from the 'Northerners' by force of arms. The ensuing civil war split the republic into two irreconcilable camps. The opposition was opposed by people of Leninabad and Kulyab. After a series of bloody clashes, the opposition escaped to Afghanistan. But the victors in Tajikistan could not divide power between themselves: the majority of high positions in the new government went to the 'Kulyabians.' In a resultant, and unexpected move, the mountainous Tajiks and the Leninabaders united against the Kulyabians.
Before Russian troops entered Chechnya, regional confrontation had been no less topical for the republic than for Tajikistan, and had been more complex. Chechen political scientist Dzhabrail Gakayev holds that the Chechen people can be divided into three large regional groups residing in the Nadterechny district and what used to be referred to as the Smaller and Larger Chechnya. In effect, they have been three sub-ethnic groups of Chechens. The 'terkhoi,' i.e. Chechens of the Nadterechny district, have been most 'different.' They settled in the flatlands in the 16th century and were subjected to influence emanating from other nations, Russians in particular.
The regional differences are exacerbated by teip contradictions. Scholars disagree on what a teip is. The majority say that that a teip is a tribal and territorial entity. A teip unites Chechens whose distant relatives have come from a certain territory. Even before Chechens started settling in the flatlands, each group 'owned' a mountain. In effect, a teip unites those coming from that 'mountain.' Chechens say there are close to 180 teips these days.
Teip and regional interests tend to coincide-representatives of a teip usually live in one locality. Characteristically, some 80 teips believe they are flatlanders: they have long left the mountains. But sometimes, the teip and regional interests are contradictory. As a rule, the regional affiliation-in case several generations have lived in a locality-proves to be stronger than membership in a teip.
In 1989, the bureau of the Chechen-Ingush regional committee of the Soviet Communist party elected Doku Zavgayev, who came from the Nadterechny district, its first secretary. In 1990, Zavgayev was elected to chair the republic's Supreme Soviet. He was the first ever Chechen to stand at the head of Checheno- Ingushetia in all the Soviet years. But teips and regions soon began vying for power. The precedent of a Chechen's election to the highest executive post in the republic fed the temptation of placing a representative of one's teip or locality at the top.
While balancing on the brink of his popularity until 1991, Zavgayev became a hostage to the August events, and was unseated as an adherent to the Provisional Committee. But a structure had been formed long before the abortive August putsch, which eventually toppled the republican leader. It was called the National Congress of Chechen People. The Congress united those representatives of teips that were angered by the predominance of Nadterechny Chechens in the corridors of power.
The initial opposition to Zavgayev included not only the 'mountaineers.' Thus, a representative of the influential Chonkhoi teip whose members reside mostly in the flatland Urus-Martan district, and founder of the Islamic Way party, Beslan Gantamirov was one of the more radical opposition members.
The anti-Zavgayev opposition split for the first time at the 2nd Congress of Chechen people. Its executive committee led by Dudayev pushed through the decision to depose the Supreme Soviet of Checheno-Ingushetia together with its chairman Zavgayev and proclaim a sovereign Chechen Republic Nokhchi-Cho. The executive committee of the Congress was announced to be the provisional authority of the republic after having been renamed the Executive Committee of the National Congress of Chechen People. A part of the executive committee's members, including first deputy chairman Lecha Umkhayev and Salambek Khadzhiyev, opposed these plans to seize power.
Since that moment, Dzhokhar Dudayev was staking primarily on the mountainous teips. Author of the book Islam in the History of Russia, Orientalist Robert Landa discerns quite a few social, historic and even geographic reasons: the mountainous teips are more militant and active, more nationalist-minded, for they had suffered more from the persecutions both before and after 1917.
After Dzhokhar Dudayev was elected the president, the Nadterechny district, the home of Doku Zavgayev, refused to recognise his powers. After Grozny's municipal council, headed by Beslan Gantamirov, was disbanded, the Urus-Martan district refused to bow to Dudayev, too. That is to say, effectively the whole of flatland Chechnya was not subordinated to Dudayev.
In effect, the 'mountaineers' usurped power under Dudayev, hence the new name of the republic, Chechnya-Ichkeria. The name denotes the republic's mountainous part. Grozny propaganda began selling the thesis of the 'clean' mountainous teips and the 'dirty' flatland teips which included many non-Chechens. Thus, Salambek Khadzhiyev was accused of being an Avar, and Ruslan Khasbulatov, a Circassian.
In the course of the struggle, religious contradictions were becoming ever more prominent.
There are two Sufi directions of Islam in Chechnya. The majority of flatland Chechens belong to the Sufi Nakshbandi Order, and the majority of 'mountaineers' to the Sufi Qadiriyah Order which became famous for its characteristic and frequently broadcast loud call dhikr.
In the course of the Caucasus War of the 19th century, Russian troops ran into most bitter resistance from Vird Nakshbandi. Both Shamil and his murids, or disciples, belonged to the order.
The Qadiriyah teaching was brought to Chechnya by famous theologian Sheik Kunt-Khadzhi Kishiyev. He called on Chechens to put up with the Russian occupation in the name of preserving the nation. But the outlooks of the two orders changed to the immediately opposite in the past century. Many Nakshbandi religious figures corroborated with the atheist Soviet authorities. Top officials of Checheno-Ingushetia were appointed from among members of that vird. Zavgayev is formally one of them.
The Qadiriyah vird rejected Soviet power to become the bulwark of resistance to the Communist regime. In the vague post-Soviet times, Dudayev naturally counted on the Qadiriyah mountaineers whose representatives soon became predominant in Chechnya's spiritual and political life.
Indicatively, similar processes could be found in Tajikistan, although 'mountaineers' managed to seize the spiritual power even before they endeavoured to seize secular power.
In 1989, the Moslem Board, or qaziat, of Tajikistan was headed by Aqbar Turadzhonzoda, now a most influential Tajik opposition figure. He was 35 at that time. He was born in Karatigin into the family of professional Islamic theologians who belonged to the Sufi Qadariyah Order. His grandfather had been arrested and exiled to Siberia. His father had long been secretly preaching in mountain kishlaks, or villages, thus eluding the KGB. Turadzhonzoda graduated from the faculty of law of the Jordan Islamic Institute, and is a professional theologian himself.
He brought many new people, mostly mountainous Tajiks, into the qaziat. Many of them not only had nothing to do with the official clergy of the Soviet times, but were dissidents and served prison terms for their religious beliefs. One of them was the future chairman of the United Tajik Opposition, Said Abdullo Nuri. And although in 1990 at a session of Tajikistan's Supreme Soviet deputy Turadzhonzoda voted against legalizing the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), a year later the qaziat and IRP became allies and, in effect, the opposition's main driving force.
Researchers note that the backbone of IRP was made up of members of the Ishan gentry-leaders of the Sufi mystic orders, predominantly Qadiriyah tarikate. Ever since the Russian conquest of Central Asia, members of the Ishan clan were at the basis of those public forces, which opposed the spread of a variant of the Western culture, i.e. Russian culture, and all social transformations.
Thus, the wave of Gorbachev's perestroika both in Tajikistan and Chechnya swept away the old clergy who had effectively assimilated with the party nomenklatura to replace them by religious leaders of a new formation. Members of the Qadiriyah tarikate became predominant in both republics to largely influence the course of events. Nevertheless, the religious 'renaissance' in Chechnya and Tajikistan differs on many a count.
Thus, the leaders of the Chechen revolution are secular people initially far removed from religion. But to stay in power, they had to rely on the clergy who demanded the creation of an Islamic state as the price of their support. Dudayev's declaration of an Islamic state in Chechnya was initially seen as a pure-water declaration. The situation changed radically with the introduction of Russian troops. The Islamic doctrine proved to be the best suited ideology for uniting Chechens into a force capable of standing up to the Russian military. In Tajikistan, the opposition was headed by religious leaders from the very beginning.
Igor Rotar admits in his paper that the Soviet-time Moscow politicians heeded the ethnographic specificity of the national republics while placing key personnel.
As mentioned earlier, in Chechnya the second secretaries were always picked from among the terkhoi, the Nadterechny Chechens who were more loyal to the Soviet regime and were thus more trusted by Moscow.
This also provides an insight into why the first secretaries of the Tajik Communist Party were always picked from among Leninabad Region residents.
The tradition was violated with the coming of perestroika. Russia's leaders, while competing with the Union leadership for power, did not view the old republican nomenklatura, who had a traditional place at the Union trough and were hence loyal, as their dependable allies. The bet was placed on alternative forces. The psychology of the Russian democrats was surprisingly primitive: there is the 'bad' Communist leadership in the republics and there is the 'good' anti-Communist opposition who must be helped in their desire for power. That the opposition was more of a religious and clan, than ideological, nature did not matter.
Developments in both Tajikistan and Chechnya followed practically the same scenario. Right after the National Congress of Chechen People, arms in hand, seized power a delegation headed by State Secretary Gennady Burbulis and Information Minister Mikhail Poltoranin rushed to Grozny. Acting chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet Ruslan Khasbulatov travelled there three days later. Not surprisingly, the main objectives of Dzhokhar Dudayev and his high guests from Moscow effectively coincided: the Supreme Soviet of the republic must announce its dissolution to be followed by elections.
In Tajikistan, Anatoly Sobchak was the 'democratic envoy'. When the Tajik opposition gathered for its first many-day long rally in 1991, he flew to Dushanbe to force the Tajik authorities to meet all the demands of the opposition. In December of that year, the Islamic Renaissance Party was registered on his recommendation. This was the first, and so far the only, case of legalizing a religious party in Central Asia.
With time, Moscow appreciated that it had bet on an uncontrollable force. The Russian leadership triumphed over the Union Centre but failed to restore control over Chechnya. Three years later, Boris Yeltsin, who had received practically all the votes in Chechnya as a democrat, introduced federal troops into Chechnya "to establish Constitutional order." That was a tragic mistake. The move made the Islamic arch of instability complete. The green banners of Islam united not only Chechen rebels but also forces of global Islam, which have been and continue supporting the former-for an interest. Meanwhile, clan contradictions persist to be a crucial component of the Islamic factor-in Chechnya, other parts of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia.
In Tajikistan, the Russian democrats' former allies were swept into Afghanistan. Their return to Tajikistan in the wake of protracted negotiations between the official Dushanbe and the United Opposition, would not mend acute ethnic and regional contradictions in the republic and around it.
Russia's defeat in the Chechen war provided extremist forces of global Islam with a new bridgehead into the post-Soviet, indeed, Russian space. In short, the 'process is underway'...
It is no secret that an inter-Islamic conflict is growing in the North Caucasus, increasing instability in that region. It is the struggle between members of the tarikat Islamic movement (who are sometimes called "traditionalists") and Wahhabis.
Wahhabism emerged in the 18th century a thousand years after Islam. It took his name from its founder Abd al-Wahhab. Its main idea is a return to the original and "true" principles of Islam: a belief in Allah as the sole deity, accompanied by an absolute rejection of all local accretions and later innovations. In the 1920s the Saudi dynasty united Arabia under the banner of Wahhabism, acquiring at the same time the status of the guardian of the sacred places of the Moslems - "holy Mecca" and "radiant Medina."
The exponents of Wahhabism are most active in Daghestan, Chechnya and other North Caucasian republics today. The report titled "The Fourth Rome, or the Second Horde?" (it was prepared by S. Kurginyan, M. Mamikonyan and M. Podkopayeva and published in the paper Zavtra on January 23, 1998) analyses the essence of the inter-Islamic conflict and the positions of those political forces which are drawn into it.
With regard to the North Caucasus situation, the religious roots of the conflict are as follows: Wahhabism which requires a return to the original "true" principles of Islam excludes the combination, in the Caucasian Sufi tarikates, of faith with worship for the spiritual leader of the teip or clan as the exponent of the belief and its genuine bearer who passes over religious knowledge to his heirs. Hence the rejection of the cult of the Saints, which Wahhabis classify as paganism, the authors of the report write.
Tarikat believers, for their part, regard an attack on their kind of Islam as an encroachment on the ancient Caucasian teip traditions, which have been sanctified by their long and difficult history with numerous casualties.
Nadir Khachilayev, head of the Union of Russian Moslems and a State Duma deputy from Daghestan, claims the role of an intermediary in the inter-Islamic conflict and the Islamic spiritual leader in Russia as a whole. He maintains ties with foreign Moslem organisations, which, for their part, are also interested in contact with him. In March 1997 Khachilayev was invited to the session of the Islamic Conference Organisation held in Pakistan, as the representative of 20 million Russian Moslems. In April, after the first armed conflicts between Wahhabis and traditionalists in Daghestan, Khachilayev had a substantial role to play in reconciling the warring parties, thereby asserting himself as a peacemaker.
In June of the same year Khachilayev headed a delegation, which was invited to Sudan. During his meeting with leader of Sudan Hassan al-Tourabi, the need for the unity of the world Islamic umma (nation) was emphasised. That meeting can be regarded as a telltale sign of Khachilayev's religious-political preferences, because Hassan al-Tourabi, the leader of the Islamic International, is one of the largest extremist religious leaders today.
The true orientation of Khachilayev's Islamic peacekeeping efforts is no less vividly borne out by his public statements such as "there is no genuine Islamic country in the world and only the Talibans are at the beginning of the way to it." While coming out for an end to the "dispute between Wahhabis and tarikat exponents, which is harmful for both sides," at the same time he attacks the tarikat movement, saying that "this sect of priests must leave, giving way to true and enlightened Islam."
At the Round Table discussions of Islamic problems held on Khachilayev's initiative, Russia was reproached for its purely Orthodox orientation and refusal to recognise Islam as an equal state religion in the country. "Russian Moslems are for a strong state. They are ready to cooperate with the patriotic movements of the Russian Federation which are concerned about the fate of the Russian state and society," says Denga Khalidov, member of the presidium of the Union of Russian Moslems. At the same Round Table conferences similar accusations were made with regard to traditional Islam and Sufi sheiks.
Collaboration with the authorities (with Russian, non-Islamic authorities) is the main accusation. Ex-Foreign Minister of Chechnya Shamil Beno did not beat about the diplomatic bush when he said that "the traditional Sufi Orders of the North Caucasus are corrupt and incapable of representing the true interests of the faithful." "Not all those who call themselves the 'successors' of tarikat principles are really so," reads the subtitle of one of Khachilayev's articles. "Characteristic of the tarikat followers of the North Caucasus and Daghestan are conformism, collaboration, moderation and political passiveness," Khalidov adds.
It is an obvious case of the opposition (especially by Jordanian Chechen Beno) of "the impeccability of the spiritual leaders of the foreign diaspora" to "the opportunism of North Caucasian sheiks who have disgraced themselves by their communion with the Soviet and Russian authorities."
However, drawing such a comparison in the interests of the Chechen diaspora would not have needed Wahhabism. The Wahhabi attack, especially in its most radical form, pursues more than destabilisation of the North Caucasus and its distancing from Russia - a task which is clear to all.
The matter is that the historic, cultural, religious-spiritual and political open and covert accord between the Orthodox and Islamic believers of Russia (including the North Caucasus) was largely based on an agreement with tarikat sheiks. The latter guaranteed it by their religious prestige and the stability of their spiritual traditions. And it is this form of coexistence that some call "conformism" today, demanding a revision of the agreement and a new role for themselves in it. And they cannot call in question this historically established accord without claiming that the tarikat sheiks do not reflect the interests of the faithful."
Thus, the main aim of the attack of the "new Islam" at Russia and the tarikat is to get the "old agreement" between historic Russia and (national) Islam "denounced" fully and completely and a "new treaty" concluded with another (national!) Islamic entity.
The issue at hand is not (or not only) territorial claims but a new, much more tangible socio-political and socio-cultural role for Islam in the Russian civilisation. As Boris Yeltsin's ex-adviser Rakitov said several years ago in connection with the hope for liberal modernisation, the issue at hand is the breaking in and cardinal "transformation" of the Russian civilised nucleus!
By and large, the "new Islam" which is talking to Russia in the Caucasus presents itself as a true national subject capable of assuming the burden of the general transformation of Russian civilisation. No less, no more! That is why both the tarikat principles and the "old" inter-confessional treaty are bad!
(It is worth noting that the proponents of the modernisation of national Islam also claim a role in political structures, as was vividly borne out by recent events in Makhachkala with the participation of Khachilayev and his supporters.)
The authors of the report raise the following question: What are and who are behind such active attempts to impose the "new Islam" on the Russian Caucasus?
If the tarikat sheiks have really disgraced themselves as forms of the religious-spiritual organisation of the Russian Moslem community and new, modern forms of such organisation are a must, we are to return to the original question, namely: What are these forms and what kind of Islam is meant? An analysis of the present state of the forms of Islamic self-organisation in Russia, especially in the North Caucasus, reveals the same inner-Islamic conflict, which continues to grow, acquiring ever harsher forms.
The levels and forms of this conflict differ. In Chechnya it has taken the form of confrontation between political blocs within the republic's leadership. Tentatively, Movladi Udugov, Vakha Arsanov and Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev represent the Wahhabi bloc, and Aslan Maskhadov, Akhmed Zakayev and Akhmed Kadyrov (the Mufti of the Spiritual Board of Chechen Moslems) are members of the "traditionalist" bloc.
After Udugov said, proclaiming the creation of the "Islamic nation", which he heads, in summer 1998, that "for the first time since Chechen Imam Shamil's rule Chechnya and Daghestan are merging into a single state," should we wonder that Daghestan is sharing with Chechnya the difficulties of this religious-political problem? What is more, the Wahhabi-tarikat confrontation, which exists in Chechnya at the level of the blocs of the ruling clans, is being actively exported to Daghestan and reproduced there in the form of an ethnic-related religious split.
All of the provocativeness inherent in the hidden political motives of religion-related clashes has fallen on Daghestan's lot. It is, first and foremost, the initial ambiguity of the export to that republic of aggressive Wahhabism and the arrival of the Wahhabi instructor Khattab there. The presence of the latter means foreign interests and money.
Khattab, who is a citizen of Saudi Arabia and was born in a well-off family, was among the most active participants in the struggle against Russian federal troops. Under pressure from his parents, with whom he later broke off all relations because of "ideological differences," Khattab entered an American university. Having dropped out, he moved to Pakistan and had special military and physical training and religious education in one of the local centres. He is presumed to have been connected with Pakistan's secret services since then. Khattab is a rabid exponent of Wahhabism. He is also an expert in armaments and in tactics of local hostilities. He is notorious for his fanaticism and cruelty during terrorist acts. According to the press, in May 1998 Khattab was appointed advisor to the acting Chechen Premier Shamil Basayev (Trud, May 7, 1998).
It is obvious that in Chechnya and Daghestan alike he not only plays the role of a religious leader but also does what he has been trained to do: inculcate terrorist ways in his "disciples" doomed to internecine feuds and provocations. Suffice it to mention the attack at Buinaksk on December 22, 1997. Indeed, that attack was preceded by a whole number of armed clashes between Wahhabis and tarikat followers in the Buinaksk district, which has predominantly Wahhabi villages.
In the opinion of many analysts, secret services from a number of Near and Middle East countries have intensified their activities in the Russian regions with large Moslem communities, in particular, the North Caucasus. Their aim is to create a kind of "sanitary cordon" of small Islamic countries, which would free themselves from Russia's influence. A great deal has been said about the Wahhabi plans to build a "corridor" through the territory of Daghestan, thereby connecting Chechnya with the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan, separate Daghestan from Russia, merge it with Chechnya and proclaim an integral immamat.
The congress of the peoples of Chechnya and Daghestan, which took place in Grozny on April 26, 1998, created an organisation of the same name with Shamil Basayev at the head. "Islamic Nation" leader Udugov was one of the initiators and organisers of the congress. Over a hundred mandates had been sent to representatives of different parties and movements and members of the governments of Chechnya and Daghestan. The sponsors of the congress wanted it to define the groundwork for the unification of these two republics' nations.
The reaction of Makhachkala authorities to the idea of such a congress was rather cautious. They justly feared that it would contribute to the whipping up of anti-Russian sentiment and propaganda concerning a single Chechnya-Daghestan state. The Daghestan authorities refused to participate in the congress and urged the republic's numerous national and public-political organisations to follow suit. As a result, the Daghestan side was not represented as extensively as the congress sponsors wished.
Shortly afterwards the State Council and the government of Daghestan issued a toughly-worded statement which stressed that the republic's multi-ethnic people had nothing to do with the decisions adopted by the so-called congress of the peoples of Daghestan and Chechnya. Pro-government public-political and national parties and movements of Daghestan also issued a joint statement, re-affirming that they had not delegated their representatives to the congress. They also expressed their protest in connection with some of the statements made at the congress, which they classified as obvious interference in the domestic affairs of Daghestan.
The congress in Grozny is not the only example of the attempts to provoke a split in Daghestan, which is Chechnya's neighbour.
The proponents of "new Islam" work hard to attract as many people as possible to their side and use for this purpose foreign missionaries and local activists.
The Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta (May 7, 1998) wrote that about 1,500 young Daghestanians studied in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan. According to the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus, more than 4,000 North Caucasian Wahhabi followers have been trained in Islamic centres in a number of Middle East countries in the past few years. Young men are illegally brought to Pakistan on visas to other countries. The programme of training includes the study of the ideas of jihad and Wahhabism and different forms of terrorist activities. Students undergo practical training in Peshawar, Pakistan, and in the regions of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban.
When the training is over the young men return home to spread the knowledge and practice of Wahhabism. Attempts to spread Wahhabi ideas have been made in the Russian republics of Ingushetia, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygei.
So much attention has been paid to the activities of Wahhabis in Russia because they, in fact, present a serious threat. Being a force which is managed from abroad, Wahhabis are used to expand the zone of instability in Russia to turn it into a zone of a "guided conflict". In Central Asia such methods have already been tested in practice in the form of the Taliban movement.
Major General Aleksandr Lyakhovsky calls the Taliban movement the strike force of the Islamic army (See Independent Military Review No. 27, July 26 - August 1, 1997). In the late 1980s, the military-political leadership of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (IRP) registered military and civilian specialists in the camps of Afghan refugees on the Pakistani territory and selected those who were to be trained for work in the administrative and "power" structures of Afghanistan. The inter-departmental intelligence department and the pro-government Pakistani religious organisations Jamaat-e-islami and Jamaat-e-ulema-e-Pakistan, which have strong influence on the Pushtu communities of Pakistan and Afghanistan, were involved in this work, General Lyakhovsky writes.
At the same time, Pakistani and Arab military instructors helped to train armed groups and units. Their training was financed by secret services not only of Arab countries but also of the US, and by international Islamic organisations.
The CIA came up with a new idea of uniting Afghan tribes and terminating warfare with the use of madrasah students. Financial support was provided by sheiks and weapons by Pakistan.
Three thousand Pushtu students from religious schools in Pakistan's north-western border zone formed a paramilitary movement, which was headed by Mullah Mamarajan, one of the spiritual leaders of Afghanistan, and began to be called Taliban (studentry).
Taliban armed units today number upwards of 35,000 who are united in 12 motor/rifle and three tank brigades which have at their disposal 1,200 tanks, 215 armoured personnel carriers and mechanised infantry combat vehicles, 300 guns and missile launchers, three squadrons of combat helicopters and one squadron of aircraft. Specialists are trained at special centres on the territory of Pakistan. There are many Pakistani military advisers in Taliban units.
When setting up the Taliban grouping, Pakistani secret services had in mind contradictions between the main Afghan groups involved in internecine power struggle. The main aim of the Taliban movement is to disarm all Afghan armed units, create a "pure" Islamic (Wahhabist) state and remove representatives of ethnic minorities (Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc.) from key posts in state bodies.
Talibans for the first time appeared in Afghanistan in November 1994. In autumn 1996 they seized the greater part of the country's territory, taking under their complete or partial control the majority of its provinces. The pro-Rabbani armed units headed by Ahmad Shah Massoud surrendered Kabul without fighting, strengthening their positions in their traditional regions. General Abdul Rashid Dustum, an ethnic Uzbek, concluded an anti-Taliban agreement with Massoud. Together they managed to stop the Taliban advance to the north. The events that followed abided in conflicts within anti-Taliban groupings with varying success for one or the other warring party. The Taliban failed to achieve its ultimate goal - the appeasement of Afghanistan by military methods. The military ethnic groupings, which opposed Taliban did not prove to be as weak as the Taliban leaders expected. However, the peace negotiations on the Afghan settlement, which are resumed from time to time, can yield results only if the forces of the confronting parties and their foreign patrons (each of them has such patrons), are taken into consideration.
One of the main tasks of Taliban is presumably to ensure Western, in particular, American, companies conditions for building gas- and oil-pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here, too, just like in the Caucasus, the issue at hand is a clash of interests involving the West, Central Asian countries, Russia, Iran and Pakistan. Like the Caucasus, multi-ethnic Afghanistan is unlikely to have peace any time soon precisely because more powerful forces, which pursue their own strategic interests, play on the ethnic and religious differences existing in both of these regions.
Experts say that the Pushtu will build up military pressure to install in power a pro-Pushtu leadership oriented to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, other Arab countries and international fundamentalist Islamic organisations. By all appearances, under certain circumstances they will manage to restore their control in their traditional regions. It is difficult to imagine, however, that this will be eventually done by the Taliban, because Afghans have always been rather sensitive with regard to the regimes imposed from the outside, and the Taliban movement is the offspring of foreign secret services which use it in their own interests.
Analysts are sure that Pakistan, which on the eve of the arrival of Soviet troops to Afghanistan was on the brink of economic and political bankruptcy, in the final count has gained the most by the many-year-long war in that country. Having become a "front-line" country, it received lump military and economic aid from the US and Saudi Arabia.
The US dared to make an unprecedented step by providing assistance in violation of its own legislation which prohibits any support for those countries which are developing their own nuclear weapons. The Zia-ul-Haq regime succeeded in establishing direct contacts with the leaders of Britain, France, West Germany and Japan, enhancing its role in the Islamic world and strengthening its ties with China with regard to the elaboration of a nuclear programme. (At present, not only Pakistan but also India possesses nuclear weapons. This is of principled importance for a new line-up of forces on the regional and on the global scale.) The creation of a strong military-political Pakistan, its provision with modern armaments and other military hardware and the establishment of altogether new relations between the US and that country largely changed the correlation of forces in the region. During the war years Pakistan turned into the main ally of the US in the Middle Eas,t which stands on guard of American interests in that region.
The Taliban movement is a geopolitical combination aimed against Iran, India, the Central Asian countries and Russia at the same time. Wahhabism in the North Caucasus and the Taliban in Central Asia are a tested instrument in the hands of well-known forces. A natural conclusion for the countries against which these "Islamic strike forces" are being used by their founders is to coordinate their efforts.
During his state visit to Moscow on May 5-7, 1998, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov discussed with Boris Yeltsin not only economic cooperation but also joint measures to confront the common enemy of both countries - Wahhabism.
Observers said that the two presidents dedicated a major part of their talks to the latter. Yeltsin also discussed this theme during a telephone conversation with Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov. After that the creation of an alliance of three countries Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, was announced to oppose Islamic fundamentalism. (Moscow News No. 18, May 10-17, 1998.)
When commenting on that decision Karimov told journalists that he regarded the spread of Wahhabism in Central Asia and the Caucasus as a very dangerous development, because it is an extremist Islamic fundamentalist sect. Wahhabis strive to come to power and form Islamic states everywhere, Karimov stressed.
Analysts predict that the trilateral union of Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will intensify their assistance for the anti-Taliban alliance in Afghanistan. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan do not want the bellicose Taliban to approach their borders. In a long-term perspective Moscow and Tashkent would like to see the leaders of the anti-Taliban alliance, who would take into consideration Russia's and Uzbekistan's geopolitical interests in the region, as members of the Coalition government of Afghanistan. The Moscow-Tashkent-Dushanbe alliance is of importance in the run-up to the UN Conference on Afghanistan, which will be held under the "Six plus Two" formula, that is, with the participation of Afghanistan's neighbours, Russia and the US. Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which are to be joined by Kyrgyzia, are expected to act jointly at the conference.
The heads of the "power" ministries of the CIS countries met in Tashkent at the beginning of June, 1998. They pointed to the growing threat of religious extremism, including its most radical manifestation - Wahhabism, for the security of the countries of the Commonwealth. "For Russia, Wahhabism is no longer an abstract problem. We have to trace the flow of money and weapons and the organisation of military training camps," the then Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin said at the concluding press conference in Tashkent. (Segodnya, June 5, 1998) The bureau for the coordination of the struggle against organised crime should create a special sector for repelling the manifestations of religious extremism, Stepashin stressed. Uzbekistan's Interior Minister Zakirzhon Almatov said that the Interpol CIS sub-regional bureau will function within the framework of the CIS bureau for the coordination of the struggle against organised crime.
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