Experts find IS' reports about attacks in the Caucasus unreliable

Caucasian militants attack power agents on their own initiative, but under the brand of the "Islamic State" (IS) (banned in Russia, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"); and the IS itself is interested to be associated with as many attacks as possible, said the experts, interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot". They believe that many statements, in which the IS takes responsibility for armed incidents in the Caucasus, are unreliable.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 25 the IS claimed responsible for the attacks on policemen in Makhachkala and Kizilyurt.

According to Ruslan Gereev, the head of the youth environment monitoring group in Dagestan, these attacks are insignificant within the general context of the situation in the Caucasus, but they are accompanied by "information noise" in social networks.

Some militants may identify themselves with the IS under the influence of its ideology, said Akhmet Yarlykapov, a senior researcher at the Centre for Ethno-Political Studies of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). In his opinion, this practice is logical for a major terrorist association and beneficial for it.

So far, there are no grounds to treat the recent armed incidents in Northern Caucasus as systemic, Ruslan Gereev is sure. According to his version, there are no large militants' formations left in Dagestan. But it does not mean that the problem of the armed underground in Dagestan is completely solved – active militants are still present in the region remain; and the population is affected by those, who are at war in Syria.

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