Chechens Among Jihadists in Syria
The Chechen background of the Boston bombing suspects has drawn attention to the roles of Chechens among jihadists fighting the government in Syria, writes Daria Solovieva.
The Boston bombings have brought attention to the tumultuous Russian region of the North Caucasus, including Dagestan and Chechnya, which was a front line for international jihadists in the mid-1990s and which has seen a series of fierce and ultimately futile battles for independence from Russia.
In recent weeks, North Caucasus-based fighters became increasingly visible online, as well as on the ground in Syria. Along with a growing number of foreign fighters from the Arab world as well as Europe, they joined a legion of al-Qaeda offshoots and Syria-based movements to fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Last week, an armed group of Chechen fighters was behind a kidnapping of two bishops in the Syrian province of Aleppo, according to their dioceses. Their driver was killed immediately, while Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim remain in captivity.
"We can say that they haven't been freed," a priest at Aleppo’s Greek Orthodox archdiocese, Ghassan Ward, told AFP on Wednesday [April 24].
