MOSCOW. Oct 9 (Interfax) – Only 13% of Russians are aware of the existence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and 54% learned about it during a poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation. Another 26% of 1,500 respondents polled in 43 regions on September 28 had heard something about the ISIL, and 7% failed to […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Michael Winfrey – October 9, 2014) When the Islamic State commander known as “Omar the Chechen” called to tell his father they’d routed the Iraqi army and taken the city of Mosul, he added a stark message: Russia would be next. “He said ‘don’t worry dad, I’ll come home and show the Russians,’” Temur Batirashvili said […]
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MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – There is an increasing risk of radicalization among Muslim youth in Russia, Russian News Paper Kommersant reported on Wednesday. A large group of Muslim youth attacked a police bus on September 26, as the police arrested a man, who drove into an officer, after being told to move his car, parked in a no-parking […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – September 4, 2014) Members of the Islamic State, a violent group of extremists presently terrorizing Iraq and Syria, have released a video threatening President Vladimir Putin and vowing to wage war in Russia’s restive North Caucasus. Message to Putin A video released by Al Arabiya and reportedly filmed in a seized airport in […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – February 3, 2014) RBTH talks to Muslims in Russia and searches for the reasons behind the country’s apprehensive attitude toward Islam. Muslims are the second largest religious denomination in Russia, and they have peacefully coexisted with Orthodox believers over many centuries. However, in recent decades, Russians have started behaving […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 20, 2104) Most commentaries in Moscow and the West have argued that the recent terrorist actions in Volgograd were undertaken to disrupt the Sochi Olympics, a suggestion that some in the Russian capital have invoked to justify even tighter security for that competition. But even if those behind the attacks are […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 15, 2014) For the first time since the end of the USSR, there were more births than deaths among Russian citizens during the first 11 months of 2013. While the difference was small, 23,000, compard to the number of births 1.753 million and deaths 1.730 million, many commentators were celebrating what […]
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MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) Police in Moscow are investigating a video that shows alleged football fans burning a Quran and attacking Muslims in retribution for recent suicide bombings in Volgograd. The video, uploaded on YouTube on January 5, depicts a group of young men in the dark, burning a Russian translation of the Quran with several lighters. No […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 2, 2013) Official identification of one of the terrorist bombers in Volgograd as an ethnic Russian from Mari El who converted to Islam and fought on the side of the militants in Daghestan has attracted attention to a trend that most Russians have been reluctant to discuss: the growing number of […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – Russian Popular Front Central Council member, head of the inter-faction group for interaction between civil society, police and security services Mikhail Starshinov (United Russia) has proposed a number of operative measures regarding the Volgograd terror attacks. “I am confident that we need to increase the number of investigators, especially in the North Caucasus, and to […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 31 (Interfax) – The head of the Muslim Board of the Caucasus, Allahshukur Pashazadeh, has extended his condolences following the deadly terrorist attacks in Russia’s southern city of Volgograd. “It is absolutely obvious that the terrorist attacks were meant to incite ethnic and religious hatred between people. Islam, as a religion of peace and creation, resolutely condemns the […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Daisy Sindelar – December 30, 2013) Dual bombings in the Russian city of Volgograd have left more than 30 people dead and scores more injured. Why has Volgograd — and not Moscow or Sochi — become the repeated target of terror attacks? Until this autumn, Volgograd was a relatively quiet Russian city, known best for its […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – December 30, 2013) [Videos here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/parents-of-volgograd-train-station-bomber-pleaded-for-his-return-video/492336.html] The Volgograd train station bomb that killed at least 17 people on Sunday was set off by a Russian man from the nearby region of Mary El who had converted to Islam and joined Dagestani militants, officials said. The suspect, identified as Pavel Pechyonkin, worked as […]
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Moscow, December 24, Interfax – Orthodox Christianity is the dominant religion in Russia (68%) and 7% of the country’s population is Muslim. No more than 1% of residents define themselves as Catholics, Protestants, Judaists and others, Levada Center said. There were 50% of Orthodox Christians and 4% of Muslims in the country a decade ago, Levada Center told Interfax, referring […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 4 (Interfax) – Russians think that the North Caucasian situation remains tense and do not expect stabilization of the situation soon, Levada Center told Interfax. Only 17% of the respondents claim that the North Caucasus is calm and prosperous, and 63% say there are tensions. Ten percent of 1,603 respondents polled in 130 towns and cities in 45 […]
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MOSCOW, October 24 (Nabi Abdullaev, RIA Novosti) – Investigators say that moments after Naida Asiyalova, a wan 30-year-old from Russia’s violence-plagued republic of Dagestan, boarded a public bus one afternoon this week in the city of Volgograd, the bomb she was carrying exploded, claiming six lives. The apparent attack serves as another reminder of the grim effectiveness of female suicide […]
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(Interfax – Ufa, October 22, 2013) The voice of Russian Muslim figures should be heard better both on the international arena and in the international Islamic community, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “Tensions between the West and the Islamic world are increasing today. And someone is trying to gamble on this theme by adding firewood to this fire. We are […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov – October 22, 2013) Russian investigators probed yesterday’s suicide bombing that killed six bus passengers in Volgograd as the southern region was placed on high alert hours before President Vladimir Putin met Muslim clerics. The suspected female suicide bomber arrived from the capital of the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan, disembarking […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 17, 2013) The Russian Federation finds itself in a Zugswang, a German term for a situation in which any move leads to a loss, according to the editor of “Kulturolog.” And in its case, the situation is especially dire because the country increasingly finds itself forced to choose between disintegration and […]
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(Howard Amos, RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 16, 2013) Public prayers to mark the beginning of the Islamic feast of Eid al-Adha were not as crowded as usual this year in Moscow. A violent nationalist rampage over the weekend has left the city’s migrant laborers, many of them from mainly Muslim former Soviet nations, feeling uneasy. Speaking outside the Cathedral […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW, October 14, 2013) Moscow’s migrant workers have seen this story before and they believe they have reason to be afraid. When an unidentified man — believed to be from the Caucasus — stabbed and killed a young ethnic Russian on October 10, triggering the capital’s worst ethnic riots in three years, police […]
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(Interfax – October 11, 2013) Some one million Russian Muslims are radicals, Roman Silantyev, deputy head of the expert council for the state theological review under the Justice Ministry, has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 11 October. “On the whole, the number of Islamists in Russia may be approximately estimated at one million people, i.e. […]
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(Interfax – September 7, 2013) A majority of Russians (55 per cent) are confident, to greater or lesser extent, that the authorities are able to protect the public from new terrorist attacks, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 3 September, quoting the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM). (1) This answer has become more popular over the past three years […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 23, 2013) Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya, said there is no Islamization in Chechnya, the people of the republic simply have deep respect for Islamic traditions and unity with Russia is a choice of the Chechen people. “We don’t have any Islamization. To our great regret, we have young women who go around naked, without […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 2, 2013) China’s massive investments in Xinjiang combined with its willingness to repress quickly any challenges to its rule there is keeping that still 50 percent Muslim region from become “a Chinese Chechnya,” according to a Russian analyst who has travelled there regularly since 1991. But that does not mean that […]
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From: “Hahn, Gordon M.” <ghahn@miis.edu> Subject: Research report on the Boston Marathon attack Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 ANNOUNCEMENT A special 25-page research report on the Boston Marathon attack: ‘The Caucasus Emirate Comes to America: The Boston Marathon Attack’ will soon be available. For a copy please send an email request to gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY What I have been warning […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, June 10, 2013) Even though Muscovites will cast their votes for mayor only three months from now, Sergey Sobyanin and other aspirants are already playing the Muslim card to win support among ethnic Russians, a practice that is further alienating the Russian capital’s large and growing Muslim community. In a commentary in […]
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(Voice of America – James Brooke – June 6, 2013) A foreign correspondent who has reported from five continents, Brooke, known universally as Jim, is the Voice of America bureau chief for Russia and former Soviet Union countries. From his base in Moscow, Jim roams Russia and Russia’s southern neighbors. Car bombs and shootings make Dagestan the leader in political […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Pavel Koshkin, RBTH – June 3, 2013) U.S. congressmen and the Russian Federal Security Services hope to boost joint collaboration against global jihad and Islamism in time for the Sochi Winter Olympics. During a recent visit to Russia by U.S. congressmen, Moscow and Washington seemed to find an agreement over the need for […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, May 22, 2013) Radical Islam has taken roots in 55 Russian regions, former Interior Minister and president of the Club of Russian Military Commanders Army Gen Anatoliy Kulikov said at a scientific conference “Islamism and Russia’s national security” today. “Radical political Islam, or Islamism, which has declared jihad on our country, is the most real threat to […]
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(Interfax / Religion – Moscow, May 15, 2013) The head of a Russian policy think tank has argued that immigrants and guest workers who have come to Russia from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union are potentially a fertile environment for radical Islamist ideas and called for tighter restrictions on immigration and guest labor. “The migrants are hostile toward […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Volume 10, Issue 88 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 9, 2013) The role of the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston bombings is assessed differently on either side of the Atlantic. In the United States, few doubt they are terrorists and that the youngest son, Dzhokhar, who remains alive, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – May 8, 2013) When the parents of “Misha,” the enigmatic Ukrainian-Armenian convert to Islam who allegedly helped radicalize Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, moved to the United States in the 1990s, they likely could not have imagined that their son would eventually be accused of coaching a Muslim terrorist. Yury Allakhverdov, a […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Why did Tamerlan Tsarnaev – one of the alleged April 15 Boston Marathon bombers who died in a shoot-out with police on April 18 – not demand an end to the bloodshed in Dagestan, but was instead interested in what happened […]
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Subject: Jackson Diehl on Extremists From: John Evans <evansinusa@aol.com> Date: Thu, 2 May 2013 Jackson Diehl’s attempt to conflate the Chechen rebels with the Syrian rebels (“Extremists of Putin’s Own Making,” Washington Post op-ed, April 29, JRL #80) and then blame it all on the Russian President risks misleading readers into imagining that Russia, not Islamist extremism, is our current […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Henry Meyer – May 1, 2013) Six blocks from the Caspian Sea, on Kotrova Street in central Makhachkala, sits a mosque being watched by undercover Russian agents charged with preventing acts of terror. As worshipers spill out into the streets, American investigators are watching now, too, as they try to reconstruct the events […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 30, 2013) The Boston Marathon bombings have served to corroborate many observers’ previously unsubstantiated hunch that one reason for the Russian security services’ inability to contain the North Caucasus insurgency is that the various agencies responsible fail to share information among themselves. In this particular case, Daghestan’s Center for the Struggle Against […]
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(Andranik Migranyan testimony – House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade – April 26, 2013 – http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/joint-subcommittee-hearing-islamist-extremism-chechnya-threat-us-homeland) Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Islamist Extremism in Chechnya: A Threat to the U.S. Homeland? Prepared Testimony of Andranik Migranyan Director of the Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, New York U.S.-Russian relations on Chechnya have a […]
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(Interfax- Moscow/Makhachkala, April 24, 2013) Dagestani Interior Minister Abdurashid Magomedov has denied allegations that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two men suspected of committing bomb attacks at the Boston Marathon, started practicing radical Islam during his stay in Dagestan in 2012. “According to our information, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did come to Dagestan in 2012 in order to have his Russian passport […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 25, 2013) As more evidence surfaces that the Boston bombing suspects were motivated by a radical version of Islam learned largely from jihadist websites, the monitoring of such websites may prove to be the starting point for closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on security issues. The surviving suspect of […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 75 – Valery Dzutsev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 22, 2013) The focus of the media on the suspected Boston bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers is fully justified, but understanding the wider context of the crime may be just as helpful (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/223152/). Whatever the brothers’ personal experience was, if […]
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(RIA Novosti – Christopher Boian – WASHINGTON, April 22, 2013) A week ago, most Americans had never heard of the North Caucasus. But the region in southern Russia has abruptly filled TV screens in US homes after it became part of the Boston Marathon bombing story, and experts warn such speed reporting on a complex subject can distort as much […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 1, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/03/window-on-eurasia-five-new-statistics.html) Five new statistics about Russia this past week one about Muslims in the army, a second about the state of its roads, a third about the number of illegal migrants in the country, a fourth about Russian attitudes toward religious instruction in the schools, and a […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Alaa Omar, special to RBTH – February 8, 2013) In response to Russia’s support of Bashar Assad in Syria, Russia has been condemned in Arab media and press as hostile to Islam, exporting only “immoral values” to the region. Independent journalist and political analyst Alaa Omar takes a look at the other side […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 28, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-will-moscows-use-of.html) Moscow’s new effort to use “soft power” in the North Caucasus instead of the “hard power” it has used in the past may reduce the number of young people joining the militants and thus buy the center some time — but only at the price of opening […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 17 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/01/window-on-eurasia-radical-muslims.html) Last year was a “successful” one for radical Muslims in the Russian Federation and hence “a failure for their opponents,” Roman Silantyev says. As a result, the upcoming twelve months promise to be “still more unfavorable for [Moscow’s] policies in the Islamic direction” both at home and abroad. […]
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Moscow, January, 15, Interfax – Russia’s ex prime-minister, Mercury Club president and Academy of Science Presidium member Evgeny Primakov said it is wrong to look at the Islamic forces in the Middle East as a single camp. “About two years have passed since the Arab Spring wave of revolutionary protests toppled the authoritarian rulers in the Middle East and North […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 17 (Interfax) – Orthodoxy is the most common religion in Russia. Seventy-four percent call themselves Orthodox believers, while 7% say they are Muslims. Less than 1% profess other religions (Catholics, Protestants, Jews and others), the Yuri Levada analytical center told Interfax on Monday. The center polled 1,600 people in 130 towns and cities in 45 regions in late […]
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(RFE/RL – Uma Isakova – Nov. 28, 2012) An uneasy peace holds between Ruslan and Rustam Shapiyev in the Daghestani village of Komsomolskoye. Younger brother Rustam, who has taken the name Abubakar, says he loves and respects his older brother, who has adopted the name Magomed. “Of course, a brother is a brother. We are obligated to maintain kinship ties,” […]
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(RFE/RL – Tom Balmforth – November 05, 2012) MOSCOW — Suicide bombings in police stations. Muslim clerics gunned down in broad daylight. Shoot-outs between insurgents and security forces. These have become run-of-the-mill headlines in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus region of Daghestan. Last week, unidentified gunmen shot dead an imam and two of his male relatives as they drove to morning […]
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