Islamic fundamentalism has been defined as a puritanical, revivalist, and reform movement of Muslims who aim to return to the founding scriptures of Islam. Islamic fundamentalists are of the view that Muslim-majority countries should return to the fundamentals of an Islamic state that truly shows the essence of the system of Islam, in terms of its socio-politico-economic system. Islamic fundamentalists favor a literal and originalist interpretation of the primary sources of Islam, seek to eliminate corrupting non-Islamic influences from every part of their lives, and see "Islamic fundamentalism" as a pejorative term used by outsiders for Islamic revivalism and Islamic activism.
Samir Saleh Abdullah Al Suwailim, more commonly known as Ibn al-Khattab or Emir Khattab, was a Saudi born mujahid emir, well known for his participation in the First and Second Chechen Wars.
Azerbaijanis, Azeris, or Azerbaijani Turks are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic-speaking peoples after Turkish people and are predominantly Shia Muslims. They comprise the largest ethnic group in the Republic of Azerbaijan and the second-largest ethnic group in neighboring Iran and Georgia. They speak the Azerbaijani language, belonging to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages and carry a mixed heritage of Caucasian, Iranian, and Turkic elements.
The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly known as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is an American graduate school of Middlebury College, a private college in Middlebury, Vermont.
Doku Khamatovich Umarov, also known as Dokka Umarov as well as by his Arabized name of Dokka Abu Umar, was a Chechen mujahid in North Caucasus. Umarov was a major military figure in both wars in Chechnya during the 1990s and 2000s, before becoming the leader of the greater insurgency in the North Caucasus. He was active mostly in south-western Chechnya, near and across the borders with Ingushetia and Georgia.
Stephen Frederick Starr is an American expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs, a musician, and a former president of Oberlin College.
Jihadism is a neologism which is used in reference to "militant Islamic movements that are perceived as existentially threatening to the West" and "rooted in political Islam." Appearing earlier in the Pakistani and Indian media, Western journalists adopted the term in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks of 2001. Since then, it has been applied to various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideologies are based on the Islamic notion of jihad. It has also been applied to various Islamic empires in history, such as the Arab Umayyad Caliphate and the Ottoman empire, who extensively campaigned against non-Muslim nations in the name of jihad.
Firuz Kazemzadeh was a Russian-born American historian who was professor emeritus of history at Yale University.
Anzor Astemirov, also known as Emir Sayfullah, was an Islamist leader of a terrorist group in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, in the North Caucasus.
The Caucasus Emirate, also known as the Caucasian Emirate, Emirate of Caucasus, or Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, was a Jihadist organisation active in rebel-held parts of Syria and previously in the North Caucasus region of Russia. Its intention was to expel the Russian presence from the North Caucasus and to establish an independent Islamic emirate in the region. The Caucasus Emirate also referred to the state that the group sought to establish. The creation of Caucasus Emirate was announced on 7 October 2007, by Chechen warlord Dokka Umarov, who became its first self-declared "emir".
Salafi jihadism or jihadist-Salafism is a transnational, hybrid religious-political ideology based on the Sunni sect of Islamism, seeking to establish a global caliphate, characterized by the advocacy for "physical" (military) jihadist and Salafist concepts of returning to what adherents believe to be the "true Islam". The ideological foundation of the movement was laid out by a series of prison-writings of the Egyptian Sunni Islamist theoretician Sayyid Qutb during the 1960s.
The insurgency in the North Caucasus was a low-level armed conflict between Russia and militants associated with the Caucasus Emirate and, from June 2015, Islamic State (IS) groups in the North Caucasus. It followed the official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009. It attracted people from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Central Asia, who then participated in the conflict, but volunteers from the North Caucasus were also fighting in Syria.
Andrew Carrigan Kuchins is an American political scientist, academic, and former head of American University of Central Asia. He has held senior positions at several think tanks, including Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Carnegie Moscow Center. Kuchins has written numerous books, articles, book reviews. He has been interviewed on mainstream and academic outlets including as CNN, Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washington Times, The Moscow Times, Chicago Tribune and CS Monitor. Additionally, Kuchins has given testimony before the United States Congress on Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
The War on Terror is the campaign launched by the United States of America in response to the September 11 attacks against organizations designated with terrorism. The campaign, whose stated objective was eliminating international terrorism, began in 2001. The following is a timeline of events linked to the War on Terror.
Pavel Kimovich Baev is a Russian-Norwegian political scientist and security scholar. He is currently a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and a senior nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The Chechen–Russian conflict was the centuries-long conflict, often armed, between the Russian government and various Chechen forces. The recent phase of the conflict started after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 and lasted until 2017.
The Province of Nokhchicho was the Chechen-based wing of the Caucasus Emirate organisation. It was created in 2007 as one of the Emirate's six vilayats, replacing the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
The fight against terrorisminAzerbaijan is one of Azerbaijan's declared priorities. International organizations banned as terrorist include Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front, Azerbaijani Jamaat, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Islamic International Brigade, ISIS, Jeyshullah, and PKK. According to the Global Terrorism Database, seven people have been killed and over 20 injured in terrorist attacks from 2000 to 2015.
The Institute for Iran-Eurasia Studies, commonly known as IRAS, founded in 2004, is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental think tank and publisher based in Tehran.
Mehdi Sanaei is an Iranian academic, politician, Professor in University of Tehran and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Russian Federation (2013–2019). Sanaei was lawmaker at Iran’s Islamic Parliament (Majlis) from 2008 to 2013. He was Senior Adviser to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2019-2022
