Turkish Volunteers in Chechnya
In-Depth Analysis of the War on Terror
TERRORISM MONITOR
The Jamestown Foundation
7 April 2005
Volume III, Issue 7
By Brian Glyn Williams, with Feyza Altindag
For several years Kremlin spokespersons have identified Turkey as the
primary source of foreign jihadi volunteers (always referred to as
naemniky, “mercenaries” in official proclamations) fighting alongside
their Chechen adversaries. One spokesman claimed “We keep killing armed
Turkish citizens on Chechen territory” and another described Turkey as
“a record breaker for producing foreign mercenaries killed in Chechnya.”
[1] While skeptics might be tempted to dismiss such claims as mere
bluster in light of Turkey’s well known secular tendencies, the evidence
is mounting that Turkish volunteer fighters make up a sizeable component
of the foreign element fighting alongside the indigenous Chechen
insurgents in Russia.
While it is widely recognized that the 100-200 foreign jihadis fighting
alongside the approximately 1,200 Chechen insurgents are led by Arab
emirs (commanders) such as the slain Amir Khattab (a Saudi whose mother
was Turkish according to jihadist websites), Abu Walid (Saudi killed
April 2004), and Abu Hafs al Urdani (aka “Amjet” a Jordanian), the
Russian government has consistently maintained that Turks play a
prominent role among the foreign “terrorists” in Chechnya. [2]
To support their claims, Russian security services have produced Turkish
passports found on the bodies of several slain fighters and have given
the names and personal details of Turkish jihadis killed in Chechnya.
Among others, Russian spokespersons referenced one Ziya Pece, a Turk who
was found dead with a grenade launcher following a fire fight with
Federal forces. Russian officials have also provided detailed
information on 24 Turkish fighters killed between 1999 and 2004, and
Russian soldiers in Chechnya have spoken of engaging a unit of 40
skilled Turkish fighters. [3] If this were not compelling enough
evidence, Russian security forces have also produced a living Turkish
jihadi named Ali Yaman who was captured in the Chechen village of Gekhi-Chu.
A Turkish Platoon in Chechnya
Surprisingly, this evidence is not refuted by Chechen or Turkish jihadi
sources and on the contrary has been corroborated on such forums as the
kavkaz.org website produced by Arab and Chechen extremists linked to the
field commander Shamil Basayev. The following excerpt from a kavkaz
interview with a Turkish jihadi commander in Chechnya is illuminating
and suggests the existence of a Turkish jamaat known as the “Ottoman
platoon” in the Arab-dominated International Islamic Brigade (it also
corroborates the above Russian claim that Federal forces have killed 24
Turks in Chechnya):
“Interview with the Chief of the Turkish Jamaat ‘Osmanly’ (Ottoman)
fighting in Chechnya against the troops of Russian invaders, Amir
(Commander) Muhtar, by the Kavkaz Center news agency:
(Interviewer) Are there many Turks in Chechnya today? Some mass media
were reporting that there are about 20 of you guys.
(Amir Muhtar) Out of the first Jamaat that was fighting in 1995-1996
seven mujahideen have remained. Back then there were 13 of us. They are
actually the core of the Turkish jamaat in Chechnya today. Twenty-four
Turks have already died in this war. Among them was Zachariah,
Muhammed-Fatih, Halil…Three mujahideen became shaheeds (martyrs)
during the battle with commandos from Pskov in the vicinity of
Ulus-Kert. Some died before that in the battles in Jokhar (Grozny). Five
were wounded.” [4]
In February 2004 a Turkish jihadi website devoted to Chechnya also
announced the martyrdom (shehid olmak) of three Turkish mujahideen in
just two weeks. [5] Another site that has been removed left the
following account of the combat that led to the martyrdom of three
Turkish jihadi fighters:
“Last night we had news from verifiable sources that a group of Turkish
mujahideen came across Russian soldiers north of Vedeno in a small
village. After stumbling on them a fire fight ensued and one Algerian
and three Turkish brothers died. The Algerian’s name is Hassam and the
Turkish brothers’ names are Ebu Derda, Huzeyfe and Zennun. These
brothers fought in Commander Ramazan’s unit in the Dagestan conflict.” [6]
For several years now Turkish jihadi websites have actually been posting
the martyrdom epitaphs of Turkish fighters who died in the Chechen
cihad. Much of the jihadist rhetoric found on these Islamist sites will
be familiar to those who follow the martyrdom obituaries of foreign
jihadis who have died fighting in Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan and other
conflict zones. The following account, for example, describes the fate
of a Turkish fighter who followed the well worn path of roaming Turkish
jihadis in the Balkans before being killed:
“Shaheed Bilal Al-Qaiseri (Uthman Karkush). 23 years old from Qaiseri,
Turkey. Martyred during the Withdrawal from Grozny, February 2000:
Bilal fought for six months in Bosnia during 1995 from where he
unsuccessfully attempted to travel to Chechnya. He went to fight for the
Jihad in Kosova but returned after a month when the fighting ceased. He
came to Chechnya in August 1999 where he participated in the Dagestan
Operations in Botlikh. After the Mujahideen withdrew, he was planning to
return to Turkey when Russia invaded Chechnya. He participated in the
fighting in Argun and, subsequently, Grozny. Before and throughout
Ramadan he cooked for the Mujahideen in his group. During the fighting
he was distinguished for his bravery. After seeing a dream in which he
was married, he decided to marry a Chechen, but Shahaadah (martyrdom)
was destined for him instead. He was severely injured during the
withdrawal from Grozny in the village of Katyr Yurt where his room
received a direct hit from Russian Grad Artillery. He was later martyred
from his injuries in the village of Shami Yurt.”
Ethnicity and Turkish jihad in Chechnya
The following epitah, which describes a Turkish martyr “with some
Chechen ancestry” speaks of a deeper and less obvious current in the
Turkish jihadi movement that delineates Turkish volunteer fighters from
the majority of trans-national Arab jihadis fighting in Chechnya:
“Shamil (Afooq Qainar). 25 years old from Istanbul, Turkey.
Martyred in Grozny, November 1999:
With some Chechen ancestory, he deeply loved Chechnya and was more often
alongside Chechens than Turks. He had also participated in the Chechen
Jihad of 1996-99. With his good manners, polite demeanor and modesty, he
got along well with everyone. He also took part in the Dagestan Jihad in
the Novalak Region where, notably, his group fought their way out of a
Russian siege at a cost of 25 Shaheed (martyrs). He was martyred in the
second month of this War (November 1999) in Grozny.” [7]
While it might be overlooked, the fact that the slain Shamil is, like
many of his compatriots, of Chechen extraction, is of tremendous
importance. It would seem that many Turks who volunteer to fight on the
behalf of the Chechens do so because they have ethnic origins in the
Caucasus region or identify with the Chechens as irkdashlar (kin).
In the 19th century, Tsarist Russia instigated a brutal policy of ethnic
cleansing that saw tens of thousands of indigenous Caucasian highlanders
expelled to Anatolia. While public expressions of Laz, Circassian,
Kosovar, Bosniak, Tatar and Chechen ethnic identity were subsequently
discouraged in officially homogenous Republican Turkey, folk traditions
such as the famous Caucasian highlander sword dances, Albanian borek
(pastry), Crimean Tatar destans (legends), and ritualized commemoration
of past victimization at the hands of Russians, Serbs, Bulgarians and
others continued.
It was only with the liberalization of Turkey under President Turgut
Ozal in the early 1990s that these historical sub-ethnic grievances
could be expressed in the public sphere. As this unprecedented
celebration of ethnicity and commemoration of past repression took place
in a liberalizing Turkey, Turks were confronted with horrifying images
from the Balkans and Caucasus. Stories of rape camps in Bosnia, mass
graves in Kosovo, and televised images of columns of pitiful Chechen
refugees in Russia struck many Turks as a replay of the apocalyptic
destruction of millions of Balkan-Caucasian-Ukrainian Muslims by
Orthodox Christians in the 19th century.
As a result, informants interviewed by the author in Turkey in the
summer of 2004 claimed that many young men from villages in Eastern
Turkey inhabited by people of Caucasian origin were told by their family
patriarchs to go and fight for their honor, faith, and ancestral
homeland in Chechnya. Moreover, with the advent of the internet in
Turkey, gruesome images of horribly mutilated Chechen women and
children, mass burials and vandalized mosques appeared on Islamist and
secular-nationalist websites alike and enraged many traditionalists in
the country. In this climate, both nationalists and religious extremists
exploited many Turks’ sense of ethnic or religious solidarity with their
Chechen “brothers and sisters” and invoked strong feelings of namus (a
traditional sense of machismo, pride and honor among Turks that comes
from the defense of faith, family, motherland, and honor of one’s women).
Like the Turks who continue to fight and die in Chechnya, the websites
that glorify the defense of the Chechens run the gamut from the
anti-American/Zionist rhetoric of the Islamists to the nationalist
irredentism of the Pan-Turkists. But the latter predominate. [8] The
pro-Chechen websites with an ethnic dimension tend to feature images of
Turks wearing traditional Caucasian folk costumes and 19th century
anti-Russian heroes. Others with a slightly more nationalist bent (such
as ) blend images of Ataturk and Alparslan
Turkes (the founder of the Turkish Boz Kurt-Grey Wolves extreme
nationalist party) with images from Chechnya. As these sites make clear,
many Turks who fight in Chechnya are engaging in the same sort of
volunteerism that led Albanian Americans to go fight in Kosovo in 1999
under the auspices of Homeland Calling and other widely recognized
diasporic organizations.
This ethnic diaspora narrative might also explain some of the Arab
jihadi participation in Chechnya. Many Chechen refugees settled in
Ottoman Jordan following their expulsion from Russia in the 19th
century. Jordanian Arabs of Chechen extraction, such as the influential
Sheikh Muhammad Fatih, have played an important role in the Chechen
jihad as warriors, preachers, and fund raisers.
Notwithstanding the involvement of Turks in the Chechen conflict, it
would be erroneous to interpret this as proof that secular Turkey faces
a serious Islamist problem. Turkish jihadis who have fought in Chechnya
have found the Wahhabi Puritanism of their Arab jihadi comrades-in-arms
unsettling, and many secular Turks partake in “jihad tours” simply to
gain prestige at home in their tight knit families or neighborhoods. In
addition, the vast majority of Turks interviewed tended to view Chechens
as “terrorists” who reminded them of the hated Kurdish PKK/Kadek militants.
Finally, the involvement of two Turkish extremists (Azad Ekinci and
Habib Akdas) who had a history of jihadi activity in Chechnya in the
bloody al-Qaeda bombings in Istanbul in November 2003 further undermined
the Chechen cause in the country. [9] Indeed for all the romantic
notions, some Turks have of volunteering to fight on behalf of the
Chechens, the carnage wreaked on innocent Turks by El Kaide Turka
(Turkish al-Qaeda) clearly demonstrates that jihadism has a potentially
unpredictable effect on those who are attracted to it.
Dr. Brian Glyn Williams is assistant professor of Islamic History at the
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
Notes:
1. “Turkish fighter killed in Chechnya.” Aljazeera.net
;
“Most Foreign Mercenaries Killed in Chechnya are Turks.” RIA Novosti.
January 13, 2005.
2. ” FSB Raskryla Set’ Virtaual’nikh Arabskikh Terroristov.” Novosti.
Lenta.ru. Feb. 02, 2005.
3. Pravda.Ru 11/05/2004.
4. Hasan Israilov, exclusively for Kavkaz-Center 2003.
5. The Turkish Jihad in Chechnya website which posts the photographs of
‘martyrs’ in Chechnya:
6. This site also described the death of a Turkish emir (commander) who
was killed by a land mine and the death of several Turks and a Jordanian
in a shoot out with Russian soldiers.
7. Martyrdom obituary found at:
8. For the nationalist perspective on Chechnya see: cecenonline.com/ana.
9. Mehmet Farac. El Kaide Turka. Ikiz Kuleler’den Galata’ya. Istanbul,
Gunizi Yayincilik. 2004.