At gunpoint the North Caucasus: Why Turkey is taking Chechen militants under its wing

Curious and alarming at the same time news come from Syria. Judging by the latest reports, Turkey has decided to take under its wing the Chechen militants fighting against the government army of President Bashar al-Assad and the Russian Aerospace Forces supporting them. What is our "friend Recep" up to this time?

As you know, after the invasion of the Turkish army, the north of Syria has been under the de facto control of Ankara and the terrorist groups it supports fighting against official Damascus for several years. President Erdogan's stated goal of military intervention in the SAR was to create a strong border buffer protecting the country from Kurdish armed formations. Together, the Syrians and Russians managed to liberate the southern part of Idlib province, but its northern half remains under occupation, as well as a number of neighboring territories that encircle the Turkish border. The leading role there is played by the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is banned in the Russian Federation. What is it like?



Previously, the core of this banned extremist organization was considered the Syrian branch of another terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, and operated under the name Jabhat al-Nusra. However, in 2017, she “officially” separated from her, first becoming “Jebhat Fath ash-Sham”, and then became part of the HTS. The obvious goal of this "rebranding" was an attempt to legalize and receive open and generous foreign aid from sympathetic sponsors. Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has been the main anti-government force in northern Idlib, creating various quasi-state institutions of government. The group managed to achieve this by military force destroying or squeezing out competitors to other occupied territories of the SAR controlled by Turkey. And now the management of HTS has done resonant statement, which naturally responded in Russia. Here's how the local OGN commented on the news:


The nuance lies in the fact that Muslim Abu Walid ash-Shishani, whose real name is Muslim Margoshvili, is our former compatriot, a native of the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, inhabited mainly by Kist Chechens, a "veteran" of two wars for the independence of Ichkeria, as well as the commander of the Syrian " insurgents ". For his unusual appearance for an oriental person with blue eyes and a red beard, he was awarded the nickname "Viking". This man is one of the most prominent Muslims who came from the former Soviet republics and national republics within the Russian Federation, who went to fight in Syria against its official authorities. The declared motive of these people is considered to be the desire to help their fellow believers in the SAR, who are “being killed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad”.

The problem is that there are quite a few immigrants from the territory of the CIS, they have been fighting for many years, have families and actually settle in northern Syria. The HTS includes such Russian-speaking jamaats as "Liva Mukhadzhirin wal-Ansar", represented mainly by Caucasians, close to him "Imarat Kavkaz" and "Ajnad al-Kavkaz", "Tauhid wal-Jihad" recruited from Tajiks and Uzbeks, " Katiba Imam Al-Bukhori ", also represented by immigrants from Uzbekistan, who are simultaneously fighting in Afghanistan on the side of the Taliban, and others. It should be noted that all of the above organizations are banned in the Russian Federation, and the people participating in them pose an increased danger upon returning home to Central Asia and the North Caucasus as potential leaders of new terrorist cells.

So, Muslim Shishani is too independent a figure for HTS, which is explained by his active support from Turkey. Apparently, our "friend Recep" decided to stake on the Chechens in order to kill two birds with one stone.
It is obvious that Ankara is well aware of the principle of "divide and conquer" and is not interested in terrorist groups becoming too large and too independent, forgetting about their sponsors in the future. On the other hand, it is very annoying how this is done. So, on the territory of the Turkish-occupied city of Ras al-Ain in the Syrian province of Al-Hassek on the eve of Opened the so-called "Center of the Caucasian-Chechen Society". The ceremony was led by a lieutenant general of the Turkish Armed Forces, which gave the event an official status, and the flag of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI) banned in the Russian Federation was raised over the building and its coat of arms was installed. And this does not go into any gate.


Recall that CRI was proclaimed in 1991, which led to two bloody wars between the federal center and Chechen separatists. Muslim Shishani was just the "hero" of both campaigns, fighting against us from the "other" side. Moscow managed to finally liquidate the proclaimed Ichkeria only by 2000, and the "governing bodies" of this "republic" were recognized in the Russian Federation as a terrorist organization. By the way, before the beginning of the 1995s, CRI representations existed in Azerbaijan, Qatar, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia and, of course, in Turkey. In XNUMX, our Ukrainian "friends" in Kiev also thought about the possibility of recognizing the independence of Ichkeria. Note that the Maidan was still very, very far away. And now our other "great friend" Turkish President Erdogan is demonstratively returning to the topic of CRI and Chechen separatism.

This is very disturbing. After Azerbaijan's victory over Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, Ankara, through its ally, was able to gain a foothold in the South Caucasus. Now, apparently, it is the turn of the North. Turkey takes under its wing the Chechen militants who are howling in Syria and, obviously, seeks to create a stronghold of them on the way of the advance of the Syrian troops in Al-Hassek. The attacks of the RF Aerospace Forces on their positions and on the "Center of the Caucasian-Chechen Society" will immediately set off a chain reaction in Chechnya itself. Family ties, blood grievances - this has not yet been canceled in the North Caucasus. With appropriate financial support from the separatists, Turkey can gain leverage in this crucial Russian region against Moscow's long-standing pain point. Here, one has only to start, but stopping it will already be problematic. The third Chechen war can become a terrible test for the modern Russian Federation.