For the readers @BooMan who think Russia has no beef with the Islamic State. Their “War on Terror” has been long and costly in lives lost. Recall the “freedom fighters” supported by the West fighting the Soviet Union in the Caucasus.

‘Islamic State’ militant killed in North Caucasus, Russian security forces report | Deutsche Welle |

The leader of IS’ North Caucasus branch was killed on Saturday along with four other militants, Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, said in a statement.

Rustam Asildarov, an “emir” who swore allegiance to IS in 2014, was killed in a raid in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, after he and his fellow militants refused to surrender.

Police stormed the single-family home where the militants were hiding after they opened fire on the police during the negotiation process. The FSB said that Asildarov was behind several attacks, and some plots that were never carried out, such as one meant to target New Year’s Eve revelers in Moscow in 2010.

Many foreign jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq are known to come from the region.

Islamic State Branch in North Caucasus Follows Same Organizational Pattern as Caucasus Emirate | Jamestown – Oct. 2015 |

As a leader of the extremist underground group, Rustam Asildarov and Gasan Abdulayev have long been known to the authorities in Dagestan. In 2012, the Chechen terrorist appointed Doku Umarov Aselderov as leader of the “Caucasus Emirate“. In mid-December of last year, he vowed to honor IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Gasan Abdulayev is responsible for the southern sector of the Dagestan underground group. Over the past few years, several large special operations have been carried out against their group, where they suffered heavy losses. Abdulaev, however, succeeded every time to flee. He avoided direct clashes with the military, concentrating on the training of assassins, who independently selected the attacking object, procured the explosives and weapons, prepared and committed the terrorist attack. In the summer of 2011, the Russian intelligence agency thwarted the bombing of a high-speed train near Moscow, where Abdulayev was acting as a mover.

Omar the Chechen: The notorious, red-bearded IS commander

A US official said Shishani – whose real name is Tarkhan Batirashvili – “likely died” in an assault earlier this month (March 2016) by US warplanes and drones in northeastern Syria.

Shishani, whose nom de guerre means Omar the Chechen , was one of the IS leaders most wanted by Washington, who offered a $5mn reward for his death or capture.

The US official branded Shishani “the ISIL equivalent of the secretary of defence,” using another acronym for the group.

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Shishani was branded 'IS secretary of defence' by the US (AFP)

Shishani comes from the Pankisi Gorge region that is populated mainly by ethnic Chechens.

He fought as a Chechen rebel against Russian forces before joining the Georgian military in 2006, and fought Russian forces again in Georgia in 2008.

He resurfaced in northern Syria in 2012 as the leader of a battalion of foreign fighters, said Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi , research fellow at the Middle East Forum, a US think-tank [think Daniel Pipes].

As early as May 2013, when IS was just emerging in Syria, he was appointed the group’s military commander for the north of the country, Tamimi said.

While Shishani’s exact rank is unclear, Richard Barrett of the US-based Soufan Group described him as IS’s “most senior military commander”, adding that he has been in charge of key battles.

“He is clearly a very capable commander and has the loyalty of Chechen fighters who are considered by ISIS as elite troops,” Barrett told AFP.

A number of Chechen rebels are fighting with mercenary forces on the side of the Ukrainian government in the Donbass.

MUJAHIDEEN VALLEY
How a Chechen from Georgia Became a Feared Leader of ISIS | The Intercept – July 2015 |

Sometimes Temur sees his son on television, in news programs about massacres, executions and beheadings — all of the barbarity associated with the Islamic State. Despite the news, Temur tells himself that his son isn’t capable of killing, because he was always so sensitive to the suffering of others, so merciful. “It was not him, only people under his command are responsible for this evil,” he says.

But Temur is at a loss then to explain how his gentle son got involved with a group that is perhaps best known for its slickly produced videos depicting decapitations and other gruesome executions. “I never got involved in my children’s personal affairs, because they weren’t thieves, hobos or junkies,” he says. “They were good people, very serious, normal people.”

Tarkhan’s story, it turns out, is hardly unique in the region. He joins a growing list of recruits from Georgia who have risen up the ranks of jihadi organizations fighting in Syria, including the Islamic State. Other well-known names from Pankisi include Murad Margoshvili, Fayzullah Margoshvili and Ruslan Machalikashvili.

All have taken the pseudonym “al Shishani,” or “the Chechen,” even though they are ethnic Kists from Georgia, a distant relative of the Chechens from the Northern Caucasus. A Chechen on jihad sounds proud. Individually or by group affiliation, all have been included on the State Department’s list of specially designated global terrorists, and have had great influence on the fate of the war in Syria. Within that narrative, Tarkhan’s path from a mixed Muslim-Orthodox Christian union in Georgia to the front lines of Syria is a larger story about the tremendous inroads the Islamic State has made in recruiting around the world.  

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