In Northern Caucasus, militants hardly to follow tactics of IS, experts believe

There are no signs that militants of Northern Caucasus decide to tighten their tactics after the act of suicide bombing in Chechnya and the attacks of militants on Grozny. The militants will hardly follow the tactics of the Islamic State (IS) recognized as a terrorist organization. This opinion has been expressed by experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In 2014, in all regions of Northern Caucasus, except Chechnya, the number of victims to the armed conflict decreased. In total, in the territory of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), 525 people were killed and wounded. Of them, 341 people died and other 184 were injured. During the year of 2014, the total number of victims to the conflict was reduced by 46.9%. Among the regions of Northern Caucasus, in 2014, Chechnya was the only republic where the number of victims of the conflict went up.

According to experts, the decrease in the number of victims to the conflict can be explained by the outflow of a considerable number of militants to Syria.

As Yana Amelina, the secretary-coordinator of the Caucasian geopolitical club, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, it is unlikely that the practice of the militants from the IS will be spread in Northern Caucasus "because of the lack of an internal database."

"I share the opinion of experts, who have named two reasons for the significant reduction in the activity of radicals in Northern Caucasus in 2014. The first reason is in the success of the law enforcement agencies in enhancing their activities in advance of the Sochi Olympic Games. The law enforcers achieved remarkable results. And the second reason is in active 'outflow' of active and potential jihadist fighters to Syria and most recently to Iraq, to the territories controlled by the so-called Islamic State," the expert has noted.

Yana Amelina has also added that the potential of the "Imarat Kavkaz" is actually exhausted and that the Islamic State "continues to lose its attractiveness to its potential adherents in Northern Caucasus," the expert has also emphasized.

"The most stable trend of 2015 continues to be an outflow of militants from Northern Caucasus and other Russian regions to the Middle East," says Professor Mikhail Roschin, the Senior Researcher of the Centre for Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural Region of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).

Meanwhile, the expert treats "as a common mistake the overestimation of the role of the IS in the armed confrontation in Northern Caucasus and the Middle East."

Mikhail Roschin believes that the fact that some of the Jamaat from the "Imarat Kavkaz" have sworn allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, the Emir of the Islamic State, will not have any material impact on the situation in the Caucasus.

In his turn, political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights, believes that the threat of the spread of the practice of the Islamic State in Northern Caucasus is more than real.

"Al Qaeda has been replaced by the Islamic State, an organization, which is even more aggressive, uncompromising and even more primitive. And in the Caucasus, it has places to penetrate into. Massive corruption of power, a lot of frightened, resentful people who see no way out and who are afraid of the authorities, on the one hand, and who despise and hate the authorities, on the other hand, all this creates the basis for combustible material," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has been told by Dmitry Oreshkin.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.