Gordon M. Hahn is Senior Researcher at the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Akribis Group and Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies, Monterey Institute for International Studies.

The problem of radical Islam in Azerbaijan is hardly new or unique for the Caucasus, even if much of the international media has refused to cover it. Its origins go back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when the young, independent Azeri state, under nationalist President Abulfaz Elchibey, indirectly supported Chechen rebels. Elchibey also allegedly invited the Muslim guerilla fighter Amir Khattab to the former Soviet Union in 1992, to help Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia. This lone anecdote proves that this problem cannot be taken out of the larger context of the growth of radical Islam in the Caucasus; after becoming acquainted with Shamil Basayev in Nagorno-Karabakh, Khattab moved his operation to Chechnya just as international terrorism chose this area as a battleground for a war with Russia.

It would be wrong to think that this war zone has no impact on the West, or at least Western spheres of interest. For example, Chechen jihadists have already turned up in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere fighting Western forces, and a Chechen cell has been tried in France for plotting terrorist attacks. Contrary to what many analysts have led Western decision makers to believe, al-Qaida has had Russia and the rest of the West in its crosshairs. Osama Bin Laden’s first deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri targeted Russia for jihad over a decade ago, and Mohamed Atta was on his way to Chechnya before he was redirected to the United States to plan the Sept. 11 attacks.

The lack of awareness here is in part due to the international media’s continued neglect of jihadists in the North Caucasus. They focus instead on so-called “moderate” Chechens that have emigrated to the West. These very same “moderates” have had no qualms about serving an underground Chechen government in exile, better described as a terrorist organization, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI). This hub of the North Caucasus jihadists’ terrorist network was responsible for the September 2004 Beslan school hostage-taking and massacre, the October 2002 Dubrovka theatre hostage-taking and massacre, the hijacking and destruction of two passenger airliners, subway suicide bombings, and hundreds of other terrorists attacks against Russian civilians, officials, police and servicemen.

When international media do devote some attention to the ChRI, coverage is rather skewed. Take the reporting of the recent declaration by ChRI “president” and emir Doku Umarov, now referred to by his fellow jihadists as Abu Usman Doku Umarov. He announced the formation of an Islamist “Caucasus Emirate” based on Shariah law which encompasses the entire North Caucasus and declared all those “conducting wars against Islam and Muslims” anywhere in the world as the emirate’s enemies. The Emir of the Caucasus Emirate singled out those fighting its “brothers” in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Palestine.”

Rather than review the long and ignored history of the North Caucasus separatists’ road to extremism, the few news outlets that bothered to cover this development, in particular Radio Free Liberty/Free Europe, played up what I would suggest is a not-so-clever propaganda ploy on the part of Akhmed Zakayev, the ChRI’s London-based “foreign minister” and leader of its putatively moderate nationalist and Sufi-oriented wing. Zakayev claimed that Umarov’s declaration was the result of an operation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to connect jihadists with the ChRI by manipulating Umarov into declaring a holy war. This manipulation was the focus of the reporting rather than the specifics and implications of the declaration.

Not only did this approach downplay a development that has a direct effect on U.S. and Western security, but the emphasis on Zakayev’s spin of this turning point conveniently relieved people like Zakayev, other so-called moderates and their Western supporters of any responsibility for the jihadists’ terrorist crimes against humanity over recent years, crimes that do not pale in light of Russian forces’ own atrocities against Chechens.

The fact is that the establishment of an “Islamic State” in the North Caucasus and anti-Westernism, in particular anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, have been an increasingly vital element of the jihadist ideology in the Caucasus for years. The formerly nationalist-oriented separatist-turned-jihadist ChRI began to head in this direction in the late 1990s. This was not least of all reflected in the Chechen jihadists’ August 1999 invasion of Dagestan. The growing “jihadization” of the movement was institutionalized in a July 2002 expanded meeting of the ruling Madlisul Shura (War Council). The council named Islamist Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev as President Aslan Maskhadov’s designated successor. The jihadist mandate expanded with Shamil Basayev’s establishment of combat jamaats across the North Caucasus in 2003 and 2004 and the creation by former Emir Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev of Dagestan and Caucasus Fronts under the ChRI’s command in May 2005.

As these developments unfolded, most of the ChRI’s moderate wing was isolated far away from the North Caucasus, having found welcoming refuge in places like Washington, London, Istanbul, Baku, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. There, they tainted themselves by continuing to serve in the ChRI underground government, effectively alongside or even under the ministrations of Basayev, who organized suicide attacks on rock concerts, subways and passenger airliners, hostage-takings of women and children at Beslan and Dubrovka, and often unprovoked killings of officials, police officers and servicemen in the North Caucasus over the last few years.

Moreover, there is nothing new in Umarov’s recent declaration. As a field commander under late Chechen President Aslam Maskhadov, he proposed expanding the Chechen militants’ jihad to Siberia and the Far East three years ago. Maskhadov’s successor, Sadulayev (from March 2005 to June 2006) openly declared the goal of establishing a Shariah law-based Islamic state across the Caucasus and liberating all Muslims under Russian rule. This would include not only Muslim-dominated Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and territories once under the 15th century Siberian khanate, but also any city with large or even small Muslim populations such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In January 2006, Basayev announced that in spring a “Great Majlis,” or assembly, would be convened to anoint an “Imam of the North Caucasus” and a “Shura of Caucasian Ulema” that would enforce compliance with Shariah law. Sadulayev promptly issued decrees on forming the Shura of Caucasian Ulema. After Umarov’s assumed leadership, he promptly created Urals and Volga Fronts. In a statement this past summer, he identified himself as the “Emir of the Caucasus” in one of his decrees.

For years the ChRI’s chief jihadist ideologist, Movladi Udugov, and the leaders of combat jamaats loyal to the ChRI have spewed forth a torrent of radical jihadist, anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Semitic propaganda. The ChRI website closely associated with Zakayev has repeatedly posted jihadists pronouncements from ChRI-affiliated Dagestani Shariat Jamaat and other jamaats across Russia, including announcements of successful “mujahedeen operations” in which they kill civilian officials, police, and servicemen of the various siloviki.

Umarov’s recent declaration of a Caucasus Emirate and jihad against the West is merely the official declaration of a policy long in action. Only Islamist and Western supporters of the ChRI refused to acknowledge this.

To be sure, some may be comforted by the fact that, at present, the Caucasus jihadists’ ambitions far outstretch their resources. However, demographic projections suggest that Russia’s ethnic Muslims will outnumber the non-Muslim Slavic and non-Muslim non-Slavic groups by mid-century. Moreover, political and economic stability in the mid- to long-term is still no guarantee in Russia. The region could be shaken by a decline in oil and gas prices, a poorly planned re-democratization or foreign machinations. Since Russia is home to a large stockpile of chemical, biological, radioactive, and nuclear weapons, Umarov’s jihadist threat could someday shake the world and should shake the makers of Russia policy in the West.