Islamic State threatens the whole world, not just the North Caucasus

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Militants of the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) have captured a camp of refugees from Palestine in Damascus, where about 18 thousand people are seeking refuge. Leaders of ISIS recently claimed responsibility for blasts at mosques in Yemen, in which 137 people were killed, and in a museum in Tunisia. Last year the Supreme Court of Russia recognized ISIS as a terrorist organization and forbidden its activities on Russian territory.

Meanwhile, two days ago the operation headquarters of the National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC) in Dagestan received information on the location of one of active members of the criminal groups in the North Caucasus in a five-storey building in Khasavyurt. Shakhban Hasanov (born in 1990) showed resistance and was killed. He emerged from jail in October 2014 and headed the Kizlyar criminal group. Later he swore on oath to the international terrorist organization ISIS and intended to intensify terrorist activity in the North Caucasus. Hasanov was involved in several terrorist crimes, including attempts on the lives of law-enforcement employees and blackmailing of businessmen, the NAC reported.

However, Adalbi Shkhagoshev, a member of the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee, thinks we cannot say that ISIS is a threat primarily to the North Caucasus. According to his data, 27% of young people in France support the ISIS ideology. Shkhagoshev thinks that economic problems are not the only reason for the spread of terrorism today: “We have spent 10-15 years explaining to everyone that we should not think that we lack an economy here, we have unemployment, it is the only reason why we are being recruited, that is why guys leave for the forests. No, this is wrong! It is the most hideous ideology that recruits rich French.”

“They say that those who have left the North Caucasus will return and start a revolution there. They do not have a chance. We have learned to fight crime in the North Caucasus locally, first of all. Secondly, we know well what is radical ideology, it is a greater threat to other regions, and European states. Recruitment is carried out in universities, higher education centers, on the streets, not for the poor. So ISIS is primarily a threat to the world, not just for Russia and the North Caucasus,” the MP says.

According to him, “the whole of the European Union has not taken notice of what we were saying, the whole world needs to fight terrorism. And now it is ISIS, how does America fight? Using aviation from above? They simply dilute the extremism and terrorism. We have enormous experience. But because of this sanctions rhetoric, because of cooling relations with the U.S., we have no opportunity to fight terrorism together. And when they see this, that efforts in the world cannot be consolidated, it is the best ground for development of international terrorism…They have their own territory, their own statehood – part of Syria, part of Iraq. And there, in settlements, natives from the North Caucasus manage to live, from other different regions… If they start returning here, they may cause problems for us. It is pure truth. But I will still inform that we have started opening criminal cases that had never been imagined – for supporting terrorism. There are articles, and people get jailed for compliance in Kabardino-Balkaria, in Ingushetia, in Chechnya, in Dagestan. Such crimes have been proved. They are being monitored, there is information about those who arrive.”

Shkhagoshev thinks that comparing the situation in the 1990s in Chechnya and the current situation in the east of Ukraine is senseless: “In the referendums held in Chechnya, over 90% said that they wanted to stay with Russia, and over 90% in Luhansk and Donetsk said that they did not want to stay with Ukraine. How can comparisons be made?”