DAR AL HARB - RUSSIAN: THE CHECHEN BRANCH OF THE MOSLEM JIHAD IS ON THE UPTICK

Chechen Warns of Islamic Extremism
Appeal of Militant Ideology Is Spreading in North Caucasus, Rights Activist Says
By Nora Boustany


A Chechen human rights researcher is warning that militant Islamic ideology is gaining currency in the Russian separatist region of Chechnya and broadening its appeal elsewhere in the tense North Caucasus.

Ousam Baysaev, 43, an author and former journalist who has made a career of chronicling human rights abuses in Chechnya and surrounding republics, presented his conclusions in a lecture in Washington last month at the National Endowment for Democracy. Such findings are likely to cause new anxiety among U.S. and European policymakers already concerned by the unrest in a region strategically important to the United States because of its proximity to Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan.

Russia has fought two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in Chechnya, including one in 1999 that helped propel Russian President Vladimir Putin to power. While fighting declined in Chechnya a few years ago after the Russian military established a Kremlin-supported government there, turmoil and strife in the wider North Caucasus have spread.

In recent weeks, there have been protests in the neighboring, mostly Muslim republic of Ingushetia in response to a government crackdown on political opposition.

The demonstrators have risen up against official corruption and the republic's president, Murad Zyazikov, a close ally of Putin. On Monday, Putin visited a military unit stationed in the hills of Dagestan, another restive republic on Chechnya's eastern border.

"In those republics, there are metastasizing rebel movements," said Miriam Lanskoy, a senior program officer for Central Asia and the Caucasus at the National Endowment for Democracy, who moderated Baysaev's talk. "They come to Chechnya, fight for a week or two, and go home having more credibility and status."

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