By Vestnik Kavkaza
Yesterday the Islamists announced the formation of divisions formed with militants from Chechnya and other regions of the Caucasus and associated with "Al-Qaeda" in northern Syria, RIA Novosti reported with reference to the Al-Quds Al-Arab internet portal. The new division is called "Al-Muhajirin" (Migrants); it was headed by a Chechen, Abu Abdurrahman. The group involves more than a thousand fighters, most of whom have experience of fighting in the Caucasus. In Aleppo, there is an equipped camp for the fighters of “Al-Muhajirin”, where they receive military training before being sent “to the front of the struggle with the army of the Syrian regime". In May, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, accused the intelligence services of the West of preventing the return home of natives of Chechnya living in Europe and Turkey, using them for their own purposes in places like Syria. He has also recognized that there are a lot of residents of the republic among the people fighting in Syria.
Director of the "Middle East – Caucasus" research center of the International Institute of the New States, Stanislav Tarasov, spoke about how what is happening in Syria could affect the "Greater Caucasus”.
In his opinion, the Transcaucasian republics have largely cut the umbilical cord with Russia, but they are not integrated into Europe, while they have become closer to the region of the Large East. Naturally, all of the events that are taking place in the Middle East, to some extent, positively and negatively, will sooner or later reach the borders of the Caucasus, and the Syrian crisis proves it. But the case is not only Syria. As a result of the “Arab Spring", the region collapsed. "Egypt has virtually gone. Libya does not exist, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. In Turkey, we are witnesses to a geopolitical erosion. This is most amazing that the Turks are now divided into the Mediterranean Turks, the Black Sea Turks, the Bosnian Turks. The Kurds are in eastern Anatolia provinces, and in some wilayats, in many ways, central power is not present. That is, the country is on the verge of collapse. Thus, chaos , destabilization , which is gradually gaining momentum, is coming closer to the borders of the former Soviet Union, to our former Soviet republics, and this directly affects the Caucasus .
Tarasov found it difficult to say how these events can affect the Caucasus: "We see an attempt to enhance Russia's policy in this area. We see signs that Iran is trying to develop some kind of a new position in relation to these events. And we also see what happens in Turkey. It is hard to say how this will evolve. We see now elements of threat and destabilization, and, apparently, the moment comes when we have to look for some new common solutions. The Caucasus is overloaded with ethnic conflicts. Georgia has lost its territories, and there is the problem of Karabakh. Two steps are made, and a third step is to be made. It is inevitable, in my view . I hesitate to say in what direction and by whom it will be made, and I’m not sure that this will be a Russian step. "
