US special forces seized in Iraq, one of the leaders of the IG Abu Omar al-Shishani.(Tass).[GoogleTranslated].
In addition to al-Shishani special forces killed seven militants and seized two more commanders of the terrorist group, has reported EIN.
The forces of US special forces in a special operation in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk captured terrorist nicknamed Abu Omar al-Shishani, one of the leaders of the group "Islamic State" (IS). On Sunday reported news EIN.
"US special forces seized, in addition to Al-Shishani, two other warlords IG and killed seven militants in the landing operation conducted in the area of Riyadh province of Kirkuk on Friday," - the agency.
According to him the three extremists were taken to the city of Sulaymaniyah in the north-east of the country. Earlier this year, the media have repeatedly appeared information about the liquidation of Al-Shishani, but in the end it was not confirmed.
Abu Omar al-Shishani (real name Abu Omar al-Shishani Tarhan) was born in 1986 in the village of Barkiani in the Pankisi Gorge, his mother - kistinka father - the Georgians. The media repeatedly reported his death, the last time the information sounded from the lips of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, in November 2014, but no official confirmation. Hmmmm........Seeing is believing......they killed him a few times as well in the past. Let's hope it's true.
#Baghdad can't confirm #USA DOD denial saying "rumours about the captures of #ISIS al-Shishani maybe true. Kurdistan is not cooperating" +
How US training helped shape Islamic State’s top military commander Abu Omar al-Shishani.(StarandStripes).
Abu Omar al-Shishani, as he’s now known, had been born Tarkhan Batirashvili 27 years earlier in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, a tiny enclave of ethnic Chechens, known locally as Kists, whose roughly 10,000 residents represent virtually all of the Muslims in predominantly Orthodox Christian Georgia.
But analysts of extremist groups said Batirashvili’s impact has been far greater than the small numbers of Muslims in Georgia would suggest. Since he swore allegiance to the Islamic State in 2013, thousands of Muslims from the Caucasus have flocked to Syria to join the extremist cause.
“More than anything else, Batirashvili has legitimized ISIS in the Caucasus by the power of his exploits, which is amplified by slick ISIS propaganda,” said Michael Cecire, an analyst of extremism for the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Batirashvili’s battlefield successes, including orchestrating the capture of Syria’s Menagh Air Base after two years of failed attempts, “helped to legitimize ISIS in militant circles, including in the North Caucasus,” Cecire said.
“In the North Caucasus, young people no longer wanted to fight in Syria with the increasingly marginalized Caucasus Emirate (groups), but wanted to fight with the winners — ISIS.”
“We trained him well, and we had lots of help from America,” said a former Georgian defense official who asked to not be identified because of the sensitivity of Batirashvili’s role in the Islamic State. “In fact, the only reason he didn’t go to Iraq to fight alongside America was that we needed his skills here in Georgia.”
Batirashvili’s mother was Chechen, and his father has told local journalists that young Batirashvili had seen a handful of military operations as a rebel in Chechnya before joining Georgia’s military in 2006 at age 20.
According to Batirashvili’s ex-comrades in the Georgian military, Batirashvili was tapped immediately upon his enlistment to join Georgia’s U.S.-trained special forces.
“He was a perfect soldier from his first days, and everyone knew he was a star,” said one former comrade, who asked not to be identified because he remains on active duty and has been ordered not to give media interviews about his former colleague. “We were well-trained by American special forces units, and he was the star pupil.”
Traveling to Turkey, even before the Syrian civil war, wouldn’t have been an unusual choice. Istanbul had been a destination for Chechen jihadists and gangsters for years. With Turkish roots, Chechens were welcome in Istanbul, able to disappear easily among the ethnic Chechens living in Turkey’s largest city.Read the full story here. More on him here.
Video - Why Chechen Militants wage 'Jihad' in Syria. HT: EAWorldView.
Fehim Taştekin, an analyst specializing in Turkish foreign policy and Caucasus, Middle East and EU affairs and founding editor of Agency Caucasus, explores why Chechen militants are fighting in Syria.
He notes that while the largest group of Chechen militants — the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar or Army of Emigrants and Helpers, led by Abu Umar Al Shishani — has cooperated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Ash Sham, it has not sworn allegiance to ISIS and has been trying to find a way to break with ISIS for some time. The piece goes some way to explain a recent video statement by the second-in-command of the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, the Caucasian militant Seyfullakh, who announces that he has formed a new brigade independent of ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra.
The report also explains one reason why Moscow is concerned about “foreign fighters” in Syria, and their connection to “Al Qaeda-linked groups”. Tastekin begins by asking why Chechens — who for centuries have fought a single enemy, the Russians — are joining the “global jihad” and turning up on the battlefield in Syria, when it has been generally accepted that unlike groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq, Chechen fighters are not motivated by a Salafist Jihadist ideology, but a Sufist ideology specific to the Caucasus.
So why have some Chechen militants turned to global jihad and why are they fighting in Chechnya? There have also been reports of some Chechen militants among those killed in Afghanistan.
According to Tastekin, the new phenomenon of Chechen militants joining the jihad in Syria is related to changes in the Chechen resistance that occurred during the Second Chechen War in 1999. The Caucasus Emirate, proclaimed in 2006 by Doku Umarov, initially transferred the war in Chechnya to other Caucasian republics. The struggle of Chechens turned into a multinational design, involving the participation of militants from different ethnic groups such as the Circassians, Karachays, Balkars, Ossetians, Nogais, Dargins, Lezgins, and Avars.
Eventually, the struggle left the borders of the Caucasus. Now this diversity is reflected on the Syrian front. Syria emerges as an important step in the integration of Caucasian militants into the global jihad.
Caucasian fighters in Syria soon found themselves at the forefront of the insurgency, with the Khattab Brigade formed by Abu Umar Al Shishani [the brigade eventually formed into the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, or Army of Emigrants and Helpers].
According to Taştekin, Al Shishani is a Kistininan [Kisty is an Georgian name for local Chechens] and like the Chechens living in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia, speak a language from the Vainakh language group. The name of the Khattab Brigade comes from the Jordanian militant Emir Khattab — also known as Habib Abdul Rahman — who worked with Chechen mujahideen in the First and Second Chechen Wars after fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Khattab’s Salafist ideology had some influence on Caucasian militants fighting in Chechnya.
The Khattab Brigade — which later formed the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar — fought in and around Aleppo with both the Free Syrian Army and Islamist faction the Islamic State of Iraq and Ash-Sham but according to Taştekin avoided swearing any oath to ISIS leaders.
Most of the group’s fighters have origins in the Caucasus, though it is not known how many are Chechen diaspora who settled in Syria in the 19th century.
What attracts Caucasian militants to Syria? Tastekin says the main reason is a sense of solidarity with global jihad, including the idea of creating an Islamic State. However, there are some unique reasons why Chechen militants are coming to Syria to wage jihad:
One main factor attracting Caucasians to fight in Syria is Moscow’s support for Syria and the Assad regime.
For many Caucasians, therefore, the war in Syria is a continuation of the war in Chechnya.
Some of the fighters are wanted by Russian security forces back home in the Caucasus, and see Syria as an escape route from the police and the security services.
Yet others are Caucasian refugees who had a hard time in Turkey, and came to Syria, some of them with their families.
One Caucasian, “Mohammad”, who is close to Chechen militants in Syria said:
“There were those who lived illegally in Istanbul for around five years, and for them Syria was the best way out. Chechen refugees, and about 50 or 60 people of Circassian origin, all members of the “Caucasus Emirate”, went to Syria. They settled in the liberated areas of Syria with their families since they couldn’t go back to Istanbul. They also couldn’t return to the Caucasus. In Syria, they have no need of a passport or to pay any rent. Security officials also don’t pursue them.”
“Mohammad” said that while Al Shishani does operate with the Islamic State of Iraq, he is trying to move away from its leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
Why? “Mohammad” said that Al Shishani believes that ISIS “have no respect for the language and culture. They enforce stringent rules for everything. In addition, they’ve looted factories . For example, they took a huge flour plant, delivered its equipment to Turkey and sold it…** The issue of declaring an Emirate has also led to protests in the ranks of the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar. All those who are fed up with the actions of ISIS join Al Shishani . The number of militants in the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar is 1.5 – 1.7 thousand people. Those who leave Al Baghdadi don’t go over to the Free Syrian Army, as it is secular in nature and it has no ideology. And there are only a few Caucasians in Jabhat Al Nusra.”
** Taştekin says that, in fact, it was Al Shishani who sold the flour plant’s equipment.
[Note --- the original piece is in Turkish, but was translated into Russian for the Kavkaz Press site. This English translation is taken
