More and more Russian Muslims among North-Caucasian militants

The fact of identification of Oleg Shalyapin among those killed in a special operation in Dagestani Kizilyurt District indicates a growing number of Slavs among militants in Northern Caucasus, said the experts questioned by the "Caucasian Knot".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on February 25, power agents discovered a dugout in the territory of the Kizilyurt District, where militants were hiding. Then, four villages of the district – Nechaevka, Sultan-Yangiyurt, Chontaul and Kirovaul – were put under the CTO regime. According to the Operative Headquarters of Dagestan, seven militants were killed in the CTO; one special fighter was lost and another one was wounded. The CTO regime was lifted on March 2.

On February 25, the Russian National Antiterrorist Committee (NAC) reported about identification of one person – Oleg Shalyapin, born in 1979, who was on the federal wanted list. Later three more militants were pre-identified - Ali Magomeddibirov, Murad Abdulatipov and Shamil Magomedgaziev. Shalyapin and Abdulatipov were wanted in connection with the murder in July 2014 of Internal Troops Colonel Aitemir Salimgereev, ex-head of the GOVD (City Interior Division) of Kizilyurt. The colonel was tortured in his summer cottage; suffered multiple stab wounds; and, finally, the attackers cut off his head.

The presence among those killed in the special operation in Dagestan of a man with a Russian name and surname – Oleg Shalyapin – "shows the international nature of the militants' groupings acting in Northern Caucasus," Akhmet Yarlykapov, a senior fellow-researcher at the Centre for Problems of the Caucasus and Regional Security of the IMI MGIMO, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In recent years, "we can state a rather mass conversion of Slavs to Islam," said Alexei Malashenko, a member of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Carnegie Centre.

"There are a lot of cases all over Russia, when Russians become imams and preachers. From single cases, it has grown into a trend," he said.

According to the journalist Orhan Jemal, "among militants, there are rather many Slavs." He gave an example of the so-called "Buynaksk Jamaat" that existed several years ago. "There was only one local – an explosion expert; the rest of them were Russian," he said.

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