The Islamic State insurgency in the North Caucasus is ongoing terror activity of the Islamic State branch in the North Caucasus after the insurgency of the Caucasus Emirate.
The Islamic State insurgency in the North Caucasus is ongoing terror activity of the Islamic State branch in the North Caucasus after the insurgency of the Caucasus Emirate.
From 2015, during the Insurgency in the North Caucasus, after the series of killings of leaders of the Caucasus Emirate by the Russian army between 2013 and 2014, they led to the weakening of the terrorist organization, leaving several members of IS, veterans of the Syrian Civil War and the Civil War in Iraq, founded a Province of IS in the North Caucasus. [36] On 23 June 2015, IS's spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani accepted these pledges and announced the creation of a new Wilayah, or Province, covering the North Caucasus region. Adnani named Asildarov as the IS leader of this area and called on other militants in the region to follow him. [37] [38]
The first attack of the group occurred on a Russian military base in southern Dagestan on 2 September 2015. [39] In a video also released in September, Asildarov called on IS supporters in the Caucasus to join the fight there, rather than travel to Iraq and Syria. [40]
From 2015 to 2017, the group made other attacks on civilians and the security fources, causing more than 180 deaths. [41] By the end of 2017, a lot of the subversive and terrorist groups operating in North Caucasus were eliminated and the insurgency in the North Caucasus was officially declared over on 19 December of the same year, when FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov announced the final elimination of the insurgent underground in the North Caucasus. [42] [43]
After this, the Caucasus Emirate and the IS Caucasus Province were disbanded, leaving a lot of underground groups to continue the insurgency. From the end of the insurgency in the North Caucasus, one of the most violent terrorist attack perpetrated by the Islamic State in Russia was the mass shooting into a church in Kizlyar on 18 February 2018 causing six deaths (including the perpetrator) and 4 injuries. [44]
On 21 April 2018, in a clash between Russian security forces and IS, nine IS militants were killed in Dagestan. [45]
On 20 August 2018, IS launched attacks in Chechnya, injuring a number of policemen; five suspected IS members were killed. [46]
On 31 December 2018, an apartment block collapse in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. The collapse, claimed by IS-CP but later denied, killed 39 people and injured 17 more. [47] On 24 January 2019, IS attacked a police post, leaving four IS members killed and one policeman injured in Kabardino-Balkaria. [48]
On 1 July 2019, IS claimed responsibility for an attack on a police officer at a checkpoint in the Achkhoy-Martonovsky district of Chechnya, who was stabbed to death. The attacker was shot and killed as he threw a grenade at other officers. [49]
On 20 January 2021, Aslan Byutukayev, also known as Emir Khamzat and Abubakar, a Chechen insurgent commander of the Islamic State, was killed alongside five other IS militants in a special operation launched by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Chechnya in Katyr-Yurt, Chechnya; four soldiers were injured. [50] The regime of counter-terrorist operations (CTO), a special legal regime that is applied in Russia in case of terrorist threats, began in Ingushetia from 3 April 2023 due to attacks by IS jihadists against Russian security forces. [51] The clashes resulted in 5 deaths, three Russian soldiers and two jihadists, 11 wounded Russian soldiers and two captured jihadists. [52]
On 2 March 2024, six gunmen and a civilian, alongside with 3 policemen injureds, were killed in a shoot-out with the police in Karabulak in the Russian republic of Ingushetia. The Russian authorities claimed that the men were associated with the Islamic State. [53] [54]
On 22 March 2024, four Tajik IS–K gunmen launched an attack on a concert hall and shopping mall in Krasnogorsk, Russia, with rifles and incendiaries, killing 145 and marking the group's first attack beyond Afghanistan's neighbors. [55] [56]
On 22 April 2024, suspected IS gunmen attacked a Russian police patrol in the town of Karachayevsk in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia, killing 2 police officers and wounding a third, in addition to seizing their service weapons (a pistol and rifle) and some ammunition. [57]
On 28 April 2024, suspected IS gunmen attacked a Russian police post in the village of Mara-Ayagy of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, driving up to the police post before throwing explosives and opening fire, killing 2 police officer and wounding at least 4 others. All of the attackers were allegedly killed during the attack. [58]
O 16 June 2024, six Islamic State-linked detainees abducted two Russian prison staff at a detention centre in Rostov. Five assailants were later shot dead by Russian security forces and one captured and the two prison staff were freed. [59] [60]
On 23 June 2024, at least five suspected Islamic militants carried out a series of coordinated attacks targeting a church and synagogue in Dagestan, killing 17 police officers and five civilians before being killed. [61] Two sons and a nephew of Magomed Omarov, the head of Dagestan's Sergokalinsky District, were identified as some of the perpetrators. [62]
On 23 August 2024, four Islamic State-linked prisoners took over the Surovikino penal colony in Volgograd Oblast killing nine prison staff. The prisoners took hostages and demanded a ransom from the Russian state. Forces of the Russian national guard were deployed and all four prisoners were shot dead by Russian snipers. [63] [64]
On 3 September 2024, a man with a screwdriver attacked traffic police inspectors at the entrance to Magas, the capital of Ingushetia. One inspector was wounded; the attacker was shot dead. [65]
On 30 September 2024, Russian security forces have conducted an operation to detain residents of Ingushetia who, according to the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service), had been preparing sabotage acts at energy facilities and attacks on law enforcers. Seven suspects were detained, while the eighth one offered armed resistance and was shot dead. [66]
On 11 October, in Ingushetia, one policeman and two of his relatives were killed in a car shelling. The car in which the attackers were traveling was found burned in North Ossetia. [67]
On 24 October, in Grozny, Chechnya, a surprise attack by militants killed one russian soldier and injured another. [68]
On 2 July 2019, as part of a series of videos showing supporters and fighters of IS around the world renewing their pledge of allegiance to IS, a video was published from Azerbaijan featuring three fighters armed with Kalashnikov style rifles pledging their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The video was formally released by IS, without explicitly referring it to a Wilayah. [69]
4 months later, after al-Baghdadi's death on 27 October 2019, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi received pledges of allegiance (bayah) from various provinces and regions, with photos of fighters from Azerbaijan pledging allegiance to him, on 29 November. [70]
On 19 September, 2024, the Islamic State claimed its first-ever attack in Azerbaijan, via its weekly Al-Naba newsletter, claiming to have killed 7 Azeri security personnel and wounded 1 in a clash in Qusar district, Northern Azerbaijan, five days prior; one IS militant was killed. [71] [72]
The rebels have committed extensive war crimes, targeting and murdering civilians on many occasions during the insurgency. [73] The Russian government also perpetrated war crimes. On 21 January 2023, a man died in Makhachkala, shortly after being detained by police, killed by policemen during interrogation over an armed conflict in Makhachkala. [74] A short video on Telegram allegedly showed one of the Crocus City attackers being tortured by FSB agents, who cut off his ear and forced him to eat it. [75]
| Year | Killed | Injured | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1 | 13 | [27] [34] |
| 2018 | 82 | 26 | [12] |
| 2019 | 32 | 13 | [13] [14] [15] [16] |
| 2020 | 45 | 11 | [28] [17] [18] [19] |
| 2021 | 20 | 10 | [20] [29] [30] [31] |
| 2022 | 6 | 0 | [32] [21] |
| 2023 | 15 | 13 | [22] [23] [24] |
| 2024 | 232 | 614+ | [25] [4] [33] [57] [76] [77] |
| Total | 432 | 705+ |
Dagestan, officially the Republic of Dagestan, is a republic of Russia situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, along the Caspian Sea. It is located north of the Greater Caucasus, and is a part of the North Caucasian Federal District. The republic is the southernmost tip of Russia, sharing land borders with the countries of Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south and southwest, the Russian republics of Chechnya and Kalmykia to the west and north, and with Stavropol Krai to the northwest. Makhachkala is the republic's capital and largest city; other major cities are Derbent, Kizlyar, Izberbash, Kaspiysk, and Buynaksk.
Ingushetia or Ingushetiya, officially the Republic of Ingushetia, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country of Georgia to its south; and borders the Russian republics of North Ossetia–Alania to its west and north and Chechnya to its east and northeast.
Ingush, historically known as Durdzuks, Gligvi and Kists, are a Northeast Caucasian ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Republic of Ingushetia in central Caucasus, but also inhabitanting Prigorodny District and town of Vladikavkaz of modern day North-Ossetia. The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language.
The 1999 war in Dagestan, also known as the Dagestan incursions, was an armed conflict that began when the Chechen-based Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB), an Islamist group led by Shamil Basayev, Ibn al-Khattab, Ramzan Akhmadov and Arbi Barayev, invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan on 7 August 1999, in support of the Shura of Dagestan separatist rebels. The war ended with a major victory for the Russian Federation and Republic of Dagestan and the retreat of the IIPB. The invasion of Dagestan alongside a series of apartment bombings in September 1999 served as the main casus belli for the Second Chechen War.
The Caucasian Front, also known as Caucasus Front or the Caucasian Mujahideen, established in May 2005 as an Islamic structural unit of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's armed forces by the decree of the fourth president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Abdul-Halim Sadulayev. In September 2006, Ali Taziev was appointed as the emir and commander-in-chief of the Caucasian Front by Dokka Umarov. The group eventually reorganized as "Vilayat Nokhchicho" in 2007 and became a part of the Caucasus Emirate.
The United Vilayat of Kabarda-Balkaria-Karachay, also known as Vilayat KBK, was a militant Islamist Jihadist organization connected to numerous attacks against the local and federal security forces in the Russian republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia in the North Caucasus. Vilayet KBK has been a member of the Caucasus Emirate group since 2007.
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, the Islamic State, in the North Caucasus. It followed the (Russian-proclaimed) official end of the decade-long Second Chechen War on 16 April 2009. It attracted volunteers from the MENA region, Western Europe, and Central Asia. The Russian legislation considers the Second Chechen War and the insurgency described in this article as the same "counter-terrorist operations on the territory of the North Caucasus region".
Galashki is a rural locality in Sunzhensky District of the Republic of Ingushetia, Russia, located on the left bank of the Sunzha River near the border with the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. Its population was about 9,000 people in 2009. Galashki forms the municipality of the rural settlement of Galashki as the only settlement in its composition.
The Islamic State – Caucasus Province(IS-CP) is a branch of the militant Islamist group Islamic State (IS), that is active in the North Caucasus region of Russia. IS announced the group's formation on 23 June 2015 and appointed Rustam Asildarov as its leader. Although it was defeated militarily as an organized force by 2017, some lone wolves still act on behalf of the Islamic State.
Vainakhia is a historical territory of Chechens and Ingush, is located in the Russian Caucasus. It includes the historic lands of Vainakh Chechnya, Ingushetia, the eastern part of North Ossetia and parts of north and west Dagestan. It has many historical sites. In 2004, rebels attempted to create a Vainakh republic by merging Chechnya and Ingushetia.
The Tukhchar massacre was an incident during the War in Dagestan which was filmed and distributed on tape, in which Russian prisoners of war were executed. Throughout the battle, Russian soldiers reported finding taped executions of Russian officers and men. Some videos were later sold as snuff films and ended up being posted online. One tape created in September 1999 showed six Russian servicemen, one as young as 19, being executed by Chechen and Dagestani militants. The method was piercing the trachea.
Khay is a non-residential rural locality in Achkhoy-Martanovsky District of the Republic of Chechnya, Russia.
Meredzhi is a non-residential rural locality in Galanchozhsky District of the Republic of Chechnya, Russia.
The Insurgency in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia was a protracted conflict between Russian security forces and militant groups operating in the regions of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, located in the North Caucasus region of Russia. The conflict was part of the broader insurgency in the North Caucasus, which emerged following the end of the First Chechen War in 1996.
Uzun-Hajji of Salta was a North Caucasian religious, military, and political leader who was Emir of the North Caucasian Emirate during the Russian Civil War. The sheikh of a Naqshbandi Sufi tariqa and a political exile prior to the Russian Revolution, he was one of the leaders of the Dagestan-based Sharia Bloc in the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, and he served as a member of parliament for the country.
Baghdadi, the 'Emir of the Faithful', has 'accepted your bayat and has appointed the noble sheikh Abu Muhammad al Qadarī as Wali [or governor] over [the Caucasus]', Adnani says.
See chart "Number of deaths" from 2015 to 2017