[psychoteddybear]

Kremlin Backed Anniversary in Kabardino-Balkaria Fails to Deter Insurgents
By Fatima Tlisova

During the past week, the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria has been in
the Russian news for three separate and important reasons. First,
there has been a marked increase in the activity of the local
mujahideen. Second, the investigation of the Nalchik attack (which
occurred in October 2005) has been officially concluded. And finally,
a celebration of the 450th anniversary of Circassia's incorporation
into the Russian state is slated for the early days of September.

Guerrilla activity has increased during the past month, with
Kommersant covering the events occurring in the south of the republic
on the Russo-Georgian border (Kommersant, August 18 and September 7).
A powerful explosive device was found in this district on August 16,
while on August 18, a policeman was killed during an attack on a
police checkpoint. When detectives arrived to investigate the murder,
a nearby bridge was destroyed by a massive explosion, though no
additional casualties were caused, according to Kommersant. Attacking
small targets in order to lure larger groups of security personnel
into a trap is a favorite tactic of the guerillas in the region, with
the same tactic being used three separate times in assassination
attempts directed at Dagestan's interior minister. On September 7,
three bombs exploded in the Elbrus district, with Oleg Zharikov, the
attorney general of Kabardino-Balkaria, indicating that this was
probably an attempt to kill policemen. According to Kommersant,
"Wednesday night (September 5-6) was marked by a series of explosions,
apparently signifying the local insurgents' celebration of the
incorporation of Kabarda into Russia."

The whole 450th anniversary celebration is a widely publicized PR
action fabricated by the Kremlin, with Russian President Vladimir
Putin even signing a special decree in September 2006 about this
issue. In February 2007, a special commission was created in Moscow in
order to deal with the anniversary celebration and Deputy Prime
Minister Sergei Naryshkin, a close Putin ally and supposed
presidential successor, was appointed as its chairman.

According to the ITAR-Tass news agency on September 7, "a celebratory
parade was held on Friday [September 7] in the center of Nalchik in
order to mark the 450th anniversary of the incorporation of
Kabardino-Balkaria into Russia. The parade was the opening act for
three days of festivities, with participants including Southern
Federal District Presidential Representative Dmitry Kozak and Deputy
Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin."

Such festivities are simultaneously occurring in three different
republics located on the old Circassian lands – Adygeia,
Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and Kabardino-Balkaria. "The simultaneous
celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the incorporation of the
three republics into the Russian state are a meaningful fact that
underlines our political unity in a so-called culturally Russian
world," Naryshkin stated during his visit to Nalchik in June 2007
(ITAR-Tass, June 26). Not only did he explain the ideological goals of
the undertaking, but he also spoke about the financial aspects, a not
insignificant part of the whole affair, since the Kremlin is spending
a total of 900 million rubles ($35.5 million). The celebration is
supposed to consist of two parts, with local festivities occurring in
the republics from September 7 to 10 and then continuing in Moscow
from October 5 to 7.

Despite the generous budget and the massive propagandist push, this
Soviet-style celebration has not been supported by the public. Most
Circassian social and national organizations have already criticized
this holiday. The Circassians believe that the Kremlin has
deliberately twisted the history of the Circassian people who had
fought against Russian rule for several centuries in defense of their
freedom. By taking the current approach, Moscow has attempted to
neutralize any questions regarding the problems of the historic
Russo-Circassian relationship. The use of "mass holidays," such as
this one, is a well-known ploy from the history of the USSR and the
resuscitation of this "Communist method" by today's Russian government
clearly shows Moscow's weakness in the Caucasus and its attempt to
create an illusion of stability in a place where problems have become
essentially unsolvable.

On August 18, the Kavkazky Uzel news agency reported that 10 attacks
on members of the security services occurred just this summer in
Kabardino-Balkaria. A total of 40 security personnel have been killed
in small ambushes and large militarized guerrilla actions in the years
since 2003. The current rise in insurgent activity has occurred at a
time when the investigation of the 2005 attack on Nalchik has been
concluded.

The accusations leveled by the Attorney General's office were upheld
by Russian Deputy Attorney General Ivan Sydoruk. These accusations
have been criticized not only by human rights organizations, but also
by those politicians known to be close to the Kremlin. Members of the
Caucasus resistance laughed at them outright, since the Attorney
General's office indicated that the attack was headed by Chechen
president Aslan Maskhadov, an allegation difficult to believe because
Maskhadov was killed a year earlier. On August 18, Gazeta.ru cited the
words of the pro-Kremlin Duma representative Aleksandr Khinshtein, who
said that "the Russian Attorney General's office lives in a different
temporal dimension."

Another interesting aspect in how the Russian security services view
the Nalchik attack lies in the way in which it is labeled a terrorist
act. High-ranking officials never suggest that this terrorist action
was brought about by al-Qaeda or similar Arab terrorist groups, but
instead suggest that it was instigated by Western intelligence
agencies. Such ideas have been voiced in the government-controlled
media (for example, the "Who makes friends against Russia" [Kto
druzhit protiv Rossii] article published on May 25, 2006 in the
Severnyi Kavkaz newspaper) and even in open denunciations. Thus,
Arkady Edelev, the Deputy Interior Minister of the Russian Federation,
stated that "Anzor Astemirov, the leader of the Nalchik guerrillas,
was connected with the intelligence agencies of Western countries
hostile to Russia, countries that are planning a blitzkrieg in South
Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the Transcaucasus" (Novosti, October 17, 2006;
Interfax, July 1). It seems that the image of the West as a hostile
monster organizing terrorist acts inside Russia is becoming a popular
propaganda image for the Kremlin, with the "Western tracks" of Nalchik
even appearing in connection with the London poisoning of former
Russian operative Litvinenko.

Following the announcement that the Nalchik investigation had been
concluded, it was declared that trials will begin in September.
Analysts are inclined to see this as one important motivating factor
for the recent bout of guerrilla activity in Kabardino-Balkaria.
Fifty-nine persons have been indicted in the Nalchik case, with 10 of
them accused of committing the most severe crimes of the Russian
criminal code, including "terrorism" and "attempt to overthrow the
government." Thirteen of the indicted have been amnestied and an
additional 24 have been declared wanted. Construction is underway at
the Ministry of Internal Affairs base outside of Nalchik in
preparation for the trial. It is clear that the authorities are
unwilling to conduct the process in the court building in the city,
with authorities noting that the increased security measures are meant
to prevent another mujahideen attack aimed at freeing the prisoners.

Increases in the military and security presence do not always increase
safety, especially in the North Caucasus region. According to the
Russian media, additional FSB, GRU, and Ministry of Internal Affairs
divisions were stationed in Kabardino-Balkaria on the eve of the
anniversary celebrations. This did not prevent, however, the
guerrillas from successfully carrying out eight bombings near military
and police posts in the month before the planned festivities.

Fatima Tlisova is a National Security and Human Rights Fellow at the
Carr Center for Human Rights, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University. She was the Editor-in-Chief of the North Caucasus desk at
the Regnum News Agency. She was also a staff correspondent for the
Associated Press in this region. Her duties have carried her across
the North Caucasus from Adygea to Dagestan.

[Jamroll]

Interesting. I don't think I've even heard of this country before. Are they Muslim?

[psychoteddybear]

lol..i'm not surprised. this is where i'm from! and most of us are muslims, yes.

[Jamroll]

Originally Posted by psychoteddybear

lol..i'm not surprised. this is where i'm from! and most of us are muslims, yes.

Cool. You learn something new everyday.

Are they fighting for independence from Russia?

[Jamroll]

Some basic info for those who are interested in learning about this country: BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Country profiles | Regions and territories: Kabardino-Balkaria

[Songbird]

Most of the republics that dot the Russian Federation's landscape are Muslim alhamdulillah.

Many, if not all would like independence of course, but due to some of the republics/semi-autonomous states being so oil-rich, [Tatarstan being the main one], Putin will never allow them complete autonomy.

May Allah swt grant all of our brothers throughout the Caucasus, who fight the Russian oppressors, victory, ameen.

[Jamroll]

Originally Posted by Songbird

Most of the republics that dot the Russian Federation's landscape are Muslim alhamdulillah.

Many, if not all would like independence of course, but due to some of the republics/semi-autonomous states being so oil-rich, [Tatarstan being the main one], Putin will never allow them complete autonomy.

May Allah swt grant all of our brothers throughout the Caucasus, who fight the Russian oppressors, victory, ameen.

Cool. Heard of Tartars, but never really heard about a Tartarstan either. There must be quite a few of these little semi-independent countries in the Russian Federation.

[Songbird]

There are many but if you look back into history, most of them were simply called Tatars.

What you see now with the many nations such as Bashkortstan etc is the direct result of Stalin's divide and rule plan. That is, by assigning them all their own 'nations' etc, was merely his covert way of fragmenting the Tatar peoples. By using this guise of giving the Bashkurts, Udmurts, Chuvash and so forth, 'independence', Stalin was merely trying to extinguish the flames of pan-Islamism

I could write at length about this but it will divert the thread. For now, here's a tiny blurb about the Tatars:

Tatar, also spelled Tartar, is spoken both in European Russia and in Siberia. Its 5 million speakers are divided into a number of branches, the most important being the Volga Tatars, who inhabit the lands drained by the Volga River and its tributaries. The greatest concentrations of Volga Tatars are in the Republic of Tatarstan (capital: Kazan), where they number about 2 million, and in the Bashkorstan (capital: Ufa), where they number about one million. A second branch of the Tatars consists of the Siberian Tatars, who number about 100,000 and live in western Siberia.


Tatar is a Turkic language belonging to the Altaic family. The Tatars first appear in Russian history in the 13th century when, as the Mongols, they overran most of the country and settled down to rule. The new state was known as the Golden Horde, with its capital at Sarai, near the modern city of Astrakhan. But its distance from the capital of the Mongol Empire, coupled with the small number of governing Mongols in the Horde itself, led to its ultimate absorption by Turkic elements. When the Golden Horde began to crumble in the 15th century, a number of new Tatar kingdoms were formed-Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimean, and Siberian. These in turn fell to Russia a century later.

Originally written in the Arabic script, Tatar now uses the Cyrillic. ***

Tatar is spoken/used in the following countries:

Bashkortostan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tatarstan.

Language Family

Family: Altaic
Subgroup: Tukic
Branch: Northwestern(Kipchak)

[psychoteddybear]

Originally Posted by Jamroll

Cool. You learn something new everyday.

Are they fighting for independence from Russia?

we'd like to be of course. but it's complicated. we're in danger of assimilation.

check this out, about the genocide that was inflicted against us: The Circassian Genocide

wa salam

[Ugur]

Down with the Russian state. All of my own fourth generation ancestors are also all refugees from the Balkans during the russian occupation of the region. The Balkan Turks and Muslims, Caucasians, Tatars and other Turkic people, millions of us have been victims of the Russian state. Maybe brother Kaminyu meant this when he said that the Russians are one of the barbarian nations called Gog and Magog.

[Ugur]

But One of my dreams is to take part in a jusitifed military campaign in Russia and take a number of Russian slave girls, though. Even our Ottoman Sultans loved those girls from the north.

[Ugur]

the above comment of mine about russian chicks was a joke. i am against pretending to make jihad and actually trying to satisfy my carnal desires. but i feel so bad today. forgive me being like this.

[psychoteddybear]

Originally Posted by Ugur

But One of my dreams is to take part in a jusitifed military campaign in Russia and take a number of Russian slave girls, though. Even our Ottoman Sultans loved those girls from the north.

They weren't Russians the Sultans loved. They were my people, Georgians, Daghestanis, and Chechens. Did you know Sultan Abdulhamit II had Ubykh blood? And that his family would tell people they are Ubykhs? Actually, in the last century most of the Sultans had Caucasian wives or mothers...

3 out of 4 of Turkey's highest generals are Caucasian.

MIT was started by a Caucasian guy too

[Ugur]

Originally Posted by psychoteddybear

They weren't Russians the Sultans loved. They were my people, Georgians, Daghestanis, and Chechens. Did you know Sultan Abdulhamit II had Ubykh blood? And that his family would tell people they are Ubykhs? Actually, in the last century most of the Sultans had Caucasian wives or mothers...

3 out of 4 of Turkey's highest generals are Caucasian.

MIT was started by a Caucasian guy too

What you are saying is true about the final century of the ottoman empire. during the rising period of the empire, it was the Russian, Ukranian, Polish and sometimes Greek and Italian girls who went into our sultans' noble harems. To name the most famous examples, Hurrem was Ukranian; Kosem was Greek; Turhan Sultan was a red-headed Russian; Safiya was an Italian whose real name was Sophia.

These women sometimes had greater influence on Ottoman politics than their husbands and sons who were only the nominal sovereings did. The period of their great influence is lamented as the "sultanate of women" in our history. The moral of this historical fact: Don't let women, especially hot European chicks meddle in men's business and have influence in politics or they will **** up the state.

Also it should be added that it was the Crimea-based Tatars who brought these slave girls into the Ottoman harem. They used to raid the lands to the north and acquire these slave girls.