The Northern Caucasus, An Endless Struggle

The Northern Caucasus regions of Dagestan, Chechnya,

Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, are still in constant
conflict. The tensions are still running high, even though the Chechen
war has finished almost 10 years ago.
With ten million inhabitants, the North Caucasus Federal District
is the smallest and most diverse of Russias eight federal districts, and
the only one in which ethnic Russians do not constitute a majority. The
ethnical disparities, together with the religious diversity have created
various disputes between local population and Russian government in
the region.
When Bolsheviks came to power in Soviet Union, a restructuring
process has began to create a Federations, establishing frontiers based
on different ethnicities. Soviet Socialist Republics were created
according to four criteria established by Stalin: a set territory, national
language, same culture and economy. In the majority of the cases, one
single ethnicity had their own territory, except in a few cases like in the
region of Dagestan where many ethnicities coexist. This is sort of
territorial division naturally lead to many problems especially after the
USSR fall in 1991. A religion has become a very potent tool in many
territorial and political issues with in the country. The Russian Orthodox
Church has regained massive power in 1991, and has become very
politically influential ever since. However, the radical Islamic
movements started to follow the same pattern of popularity in the
Northern Caucasus regions.
Vladimir Putin always had absolutely zero tolerance when it
comes to fundamental Islamic groups, and this kind of attitude could
be seen at one of the interviews at G8 summit in 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S1ZfjZmjgA
Putins determination to completely eradicate fundamental Islamic
groups such as Caucasus Emirate terrorist organization had
increased with the preparation of Sochi Winter Olympic games in 2014.
Therefore in only first three months of 2014, Russias security services
conducted 33 counter-terrorist operations and have eliminated 13
warlords and 65 active members of the terrorist underworld, with over
240 terrorists have been arrested.
This could be seen as a severe answer from Russian government on
various terrorist attacks which have been conducted in past such as
Nevsky Express terrorist attack from 2009 in which 29 people died, two

combined attacks from 2010 and 2011 in Moscow which killed over 77
people, Volgograd attack from 2009 with 41 victims and also the threat
which was calling for attacks on the Olympic games.
Chechen warlord, Doku Umarov, Russias most wanted criminal and
often described as Russian Osama bin Laden has been killed by the
Russian anti-terrorist forces in mid March.
Umarovs terrorists group was guilty of the continuous conflict in the
region, seeking for secession from Russia and willing to create a state
to share only with "their people." The counter terrorist actions of the
Russian government led to formation of some other form of terrorism,
Black Widows a.k.a. Shahidka, a term for Islamist Chechen female
suicide bombers, willing to a manifest a violent act of suicide
bombings, in order to revenge their husbands or family members,
which have been killed by the Russian security forces.
The future of the Northern Caucasus remains unknown, as
constant terrorist attacks combined with the constant Russian
securitys effort of forced eradication of terrorist/separatist groups
seems only to create a vicious cycle which lasts for over 25 years now.
With the current Ukrainian crisis and very oppressive and expansionist
attitude from the Russian government, there are very small chances
that we could see any separatist action in Northern Caucasus, at least
not in the near future.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2599771/Russiaswanted-man-Islamist-terrorist-blamed-dozens-deaths-killed-combatoperation-lawless-state-Kremlin-says.html#ixzz32Z00df63
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/722/causes-of-violent-conflict-inthe-caucasus-since-the-collapse-of-communism
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/russias-north-caucasus-region/
www.safeworld.org.uk/where/caucasus