The harakiri of the mujahedin (weekly review) By Vadim Borshchev, special to Prague Watchdog
Last week the reporters who wrote about the suicide bombing on Grozny’s Theatre Square were quick to seize on the words of Ramzan Kadyrov, who said that the incident bore witness to the “death agony of the insurgents”.
Like his predecessors, he is bearish (to use a term from economics) about the mujahedin, constantly downplaying their numbers. From a psychological point of view it is quite a justifiable approach: if your enemy is a common criminal, a gangster who doesn’t believe in God or the Devil, if his convictions are just a convenient pretext concealing self-interest and base aspirations, there is no problem in dealing with him. Not for nothing does Kadyrov spend so much time trying to discredit the former Ichkerian leaders.
According to his argument, the insurgents’ death agony, of which the head of the Chechen republic speaks as if it were an established fact, is a consequence of the feebleness and desperation of gangsters who have finally realized that their deaths are near and there will be no mercy. Forced into a corner, and filled with hatred, they are ready to sacrifice themselves to the command of their leader. This image is a clear and logical one in its own way, but it bears no relation to the reality of the war.
Even the incomplete statistics of the human rights organizations indicate that there has been a notable increase in the losses incurred by both sides in the fighting that has taken place over the past year. The Kadyrovites believe that this is easy to explain: the massive offensive in the mountains, which has been conducted by local police and federal troops in Chechnya and Ingushetia for the past six weeks or so, is compelling Dokka Umarov’s detachments to engage in desperate resistance. It’s well known that the throes of a death agony are accompanied by increased physical activity.
In addition to statistics, there are other objective indicators which allow us to assert that the findings of Ramzan Kadyrov are at the least premature. The mujahedin fighters themselves say that over the past two or three years their resource base has greatly increased in size, though these claims should not be taken at face value, of course. Such claims may well represent the usual element of counter-propaganda, at which the Caucasus Emirate’s supporters are no less skilled than their opponents.
The Chechen militants are now ignored both by the Russian public and by the outside world. Today it is naive for the insurgents to hope for a military victory, for in spite of all its problems the Russian army is strong enough to dispel all dreams of its defeat. The insurgents’ commitment to radical Islam has deprived them of any possibility of appealing to the West to act as an arbitrator. For the same reason, the Islamic countries cannot openly support the Caucasian mujahedin.
The lives of the insurgents now hang by a thread. When he takes to the hills, even a very young man cannot imagine that death most probably be his only reward. He goes off to fight in the terrible knowledge that his decision condemns his relatives to torment and humiliation. The authorities will not leave those relatives in peace. Nor can he lay down his rifle and simply return to his former life, as many did in the first war. The struggle is no longer perceived as an episode, it becomes a matter of life or death at the moment when he makes his choice. And he has no hope of any swift victory, nor of being able to simply step aside at a difficult moment.
How can the insurgency be in its “death agony” if for the majority of the mujahedin death is the fate they expect, or even desire? It is clear that in describing the enemy in these terms, Kadyrov is merely trying to ward off his own fears, knowing that the force which opposes him derives its strength not from the power of its bayonets, but from an undying religious faith. He is not some Russian general, for whom the Chechens’ beliefs and aspirations are a tightly closed book.
The insurgents may be a totalitarian religious sect, or they may be Islamic Robin Hoods with a liking for terrorism, but we know precisely what they are not. They are not a criminal brotherhood in a state of agony and despair.
Photo: 2000.net.ua. (Translation by DM ) (P,DM)
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