Translated material
Traces of the "Islamic state"
Daniil Turovsky - about how the largest terrorist organization penetrates into Russia
On June 22, 2015, the Islamic State announced the creation of a cell in the Russian North Caucasian republics. This was announced by one of the leaders of the world's largest terrorist group, prohibited and recognized in the Russian Federation of extremist. At the same time, IS militants have repeatedly noted that Russia (along with the USA) is included in the list of the main enemies of the organization. To manage the “Vilayak of the Caucasus” - the Caucasian division of IG - will be the leader of the Dagestan militants Abu Muhammad Kadarsky, the comrades -in -arms of Doku Umarov (the leader of Chechen separatists died in 2013). Special correspondent of Medusa Daniil Turovsky tells how girls from Russia become the brides of jihadists, what is the branch of the Islamic State in the Russian Federation, as well as which of the Russians was detained and convicted of cooperation with the Islamic State.
Brides of jihadists
According to the FSB, 99% of dating between the militants of the Islamic State and Russian girls take place on the Nikah.com website - the largest resource of Muslim acquaintances in the world. About this "Medusa" was told by a source in the power department.
In order to start viewing other people's profiles on the site, you will have to fill out your own extremely in detail: put a “tick”, that you are a Muslim, indicate whether you were born in Islam or accepted it, choose “religiosity” (“very religious” or “not very”) and a branch of Islam; To inform growth and weight, as well as clarify who the questionnaire was filled with - relatives or independently. The portal has an application for smartphones; In addition to it, you can find several more applications for Muslim acquaintances, including those built on the principle of "Tinder".
There are also “instructions” sites for the “jihadists” sites-like the al-Khans blog, in which a woman who has already moved to IG says that she should take with her (necessarily a hairdryer and warm things should not take tea or coffee), answers the readers' questions (“tell my parents that I am going to Dzhihad?”-“No need”) and talks about the Qur'an. To the question, “What is the purpose of the girls in the IG?”, She replies: “The main role is to support her husband and his jihad.”
Now it is known about 17 cases when the girls from Russia left or tried to leave for the Islamic State. The most discussed of them is the story of a 19-year-old student of Moscow State University Barbara Karaulova.
Before the departure, Karaulov actively studied the Koran and Arabic, went to university classes in a hijab. Special services believe that on May 27, 2015, she went to the IG to a long-standing Internet of Kazan. “The affection was very strong, a friend proposed another world - with high ideas and values,” the lawyer of Karaulova “Karaulova” told about “friend from Kazan”.
In the evening of May 27, she sent SMS to her mother - with a request to walk her dog, and then stopped in touch. In WhatsApp, she changed her name to “Amina”, and the word was written in Arabic. That same evening, parents turned to the police; The next day, Barbara’s father Pavel wrote a post on her disappearance on social networks: “They took it to Istanbul, allegedly for transferring to Syria.”
Meanwhile, Varvara Karaulova flew to Istanbul, then reached the Turkish city of Kilis-this is one of the main transit points on the Turkish-Syrian border for those who wanted to get to the Islamic State.
On June 4, she was detained in Kilis in Turkish special services. In addition to her, about ten more Russians were going to cross the Syrian border, including four women (two were born in 1982 and 1983, two in 1991). Five days later, June 11, Karaulov was deported. Nothing is known about the fate of other detained Russians.
In Moscow, Karaulov was questioned as a witness in the recruitment case. At the same time, the initiation of such a case was not reported. Now Karaulov is at home and does not communicate with reporters.
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In addition to Karaulova, there is information about the four Muscovites who left or tried to leave for the Islamic State.
At the end of May 2014, a 20-year-old Muscovite went to IG, her name was not called. The Moscow police opened a criminal case under article 205.5. ("Organization of the activities of a terrorist organization and participation in the activities of such an organization").
On March 14, 2015, a 19-year-old student at the Financial Academy Pitula Abdulaeva, a native of Dagestan, left the house. Now it is located on the territory of the Islamic State, but maintains contact with parents. She informed them that she was studying the Qur'an and living in a room with another girl.
At the end of May 2015, a tenth grader escaped from the house (the name is not called). A friend came behind her, with whom she talked in social networks for about two years. They conducted a rite of a Muslim marriage of nickes and flew to the village near Makhachkala, so that after a while to go to IG. Two days later, the FSB officers (with them was the father of the schoolgirl) took the girl from the house of the "husband".
On June 16, 2015, a wartom of the Russian Academy and National Economy and the Presidential Service (RANEPA) Mariam Ismailova left the house. She was brought up in Islam. Her father Mansur Ismailov said that she studied religion herself. “I was confused by her love for dark colors, her older sister also wears a hijab, but she wears him beautifully, loves bright colors, fabrics and decorates herself, but Mariam seemed to be afraid to be in the spotlight and chose black,” he said . Mansur Ismailov believes that it is necessary to look for his daughter in the Islamic State.
We left for IG and from St. Petersburg. On November 17, 2014, 18-year-old Maria Pogorelova went through Istanbul to the Islamic State. The Investigative Committee instituted the case under Article 208 (“Participation in the armed group not provided for by federal law, as well as participation in the territory of a foreign state in armed formation”). Pogorelova studied on a hairdresser, spent a lot of time with St. Petersburg nationalists; In 2013, the police detained her for jumping around cars in the city center. In the summer of 2014, according to Fontanka, she began to wear Nikabs (a headdress covering her face, with a narrow gap for the eyes). She always walked in black, wore a swastika on her neck; In the family is a difficult situation: there is no father, his mother drinks, told Medusa about Mary her friend.
The source of Medusa, close to the St. Petersburg department of the FSB, noted that the special services opened the correspondence of Pogorelova on social networks, from which it became clear: she met on the dating site with Abu Baku (originally from Kabardino-Balkaria) and left for him. Abu Bak on his page on social networks - in addition to radical Islamic sermons - uploads photos of cats with weapons; Under one of them, the signature: "Already the kittens have been covered to take up weapons and men in a penny are still sitting." In the Islamic State, Maria Pogorelova changed her name, now she is Maryam Maryamova.
On May 18, 2015, 18-year-old Fatimat Dzamalova, a student of the St. Petersburg State Pediatric University, left for the Islamic State, left for the Islamic State through Istanbul to the Islamic State. Fontanka reported that the girl, having been in Syria in an apartment with other recruited, asked her parents for help through the messenger. She is still in IG, no messages were received from her anymore.
The Islamic State also left Astrakhan, Belgorod and Voronezh. For a long time in Syria, there is a student of the Medical Academy Daria Izenkova from Astrakhan. When exactly she moved to the territory controlled by the militants is unknown. In the IG she collects donations for the activities of the group. In mid -June 2015, two students disappeared in Belgorod. According to Interfax, they could leave for the Islamic State. Finally, on June 22, 2015, the Investigative Department of the FSB in the Voronezh region started the case for 25-year-old Kristina Presnyakova Article 208 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Participation in armed formation”). In 2013, she left for Syria, entered the formation of Jamaat Abu Hanif, and is now in the city of Racca, controlled by IG.
IG branch in the Caucasus
A rare forest somewhere in the North Caucasus; Between the trees, several bearded men in a shabby camouflage form and with weapons at the ready are made through the snowdrifts. The background is lyrical seats (Muslim chants). This is an entry to the audio version of the oath of “Mujahidens of the Vilaiats of the Caucasus” (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria), which was posted to the network in mid-June 2015. “Allah Almighty said: keep together tightly and do not share. We announce our oath to the caliph, for obedience and submission to what we like, and that we are hateful. We testify that all the Caucasus’s Mujahideen are united in this decision and there are no disagreements among us, ”says a sunbeam. He calls for all Muslims to swear to the caliph and the head of the Islamic State Abu Bakru al-Baghdadi.
Next, several more video recordings of individual swores of the Vilaiyatov Amirs appeared. All these videos were blocked in Russia by Roskomnadzor. In the propaganda department of the Islamic State, a general video sequence was mounted from these videos, providing it with video effects. The inscription "Unity of the Mujahides of the Caucasus" (spelling of the authors of the video) occurs on the screen, dizzy and is highlighted in different colors; Following - several monologues of the fighters of the IG, shot in HD. “By the will of Allah, the Caucasus’s Mujahideen will now fight under one banner and one ruler,” says the first man. “Jihad's banner will rise with renewed vigor in the Caucasus,” says the second. “We want the Caucasus to have a caliphate, Sharia, the law of Allah,” says the third.
Abu Muhammad al-Annani-Deputy Leader of IG Abu Bakra al-Baghdadi-said on June 22 that their oath was accepted: Thus, for the first time in Europe, the Islamic State department appeared. They will lead them Abu Muhammad Kadar. The number of militants in the "Vilayayat of the Caucasus" is unknown.
Kadar (real name Rustam Aselders) - a Dagestan action movie, who was a colleague of Doku Umarov and the head of Vilaiyat Dagestan (part of the Imrat Caucasus, the organization is prohibited in Russia); One of the first in the Caucasus-back in December 2014-al-Baghdadi swore.
However, even before the creation of the official department of IG in Russia, the North Caucasus was extremely important for a terrorist group. One of the leaders of the IS Army, a native of the Pankisian gorge (Georgia) Umar al-Shishani told in an interview with the Mujahideen website that he ended up in Syria in 2012 by order of Doku Umarov, then-the leader of the Imrat Caucasus terrorist organization (involved in the explosions in Domodedovo and an attempt to undermine Sapsan in 2011). For Ash Shishani, who was one of the first to pave the way from the Caucasus to IG, hundreds of militants went to Syria. Ash Shishani also said that Umarov, who died in 2013, at first financed the Caucasian militants who moved to Syria and Iraq; In the same interview, he noted that he gave Bayyut (oath) Abu Bakru al-Baghdadi on the orders of Doku Umarov.
One of the preachers of the “Islamic state” told Medusa that Russian -speaking militants, who are about one and a half thousand people, “are very appreciated in IG” and “in most cases play the role of attack aircraft because they show heroism.” He also noted: the Caucasian Caucasian groups, which were under the control of the Imrat of the Caucasus, have long passed under the control of the Islamic State. Now, from June 22, 2015, they can use the IG flag in Russia “officially”.
Detained and convicted
Dozens of criminal cases related to the “Islamic state” have been instituted throughout Russia - for participating in battles in IG, for recruitment in the ranks of jihadists, as well as for financial assistance to militants.
In October 2014, a dozen supporters of IG was detained in the Moscow car service in the Volgogradsky Prospekt area. Then a source in law enforcement agencies said that they “agreed with persons professing radical forms of Islam, grew beards; There was information that part of the funds received from the car service can go to Syria. ”
In January 2015, in Kostroma, the court sentenced the spouses (names are not called) to prison terms for trying to join the “Islamic state”. They have three children, the man worked in the market, the woman was a housewife. Special services believe that the wife persuaded her husband to accept Islam and leave for Syria.
In February 2015, in Moscow near the Savelovsky market they detained a man who led on the social networks of the page on behalf of IG.
In early June 2015, the Russian intelligence services detained supporters of IS in a cafe in the center of Moscow, among them were "both Russians and illegal immigrants from Central Asia." Medusa said that many Moscow construction sites, where labor migrants from Central Asia work, come “Chechen recruiters” - several groups moving daily between the habitats of migrants - cabinets, dormitories, cafes near mosques, construction sites. Builders at several Moscow construction sites confirmed Medusa that the “recruiters of IG” came to them. In one of the construction projects in the Central District, the man said that the Tatars also work recruiters (according to the FSB, among the militants in the IG now there are about 200 immigrants from the Volga region).
In June 2015, the Rostov-on-Don court sentenced Ruslan Ionov and Murad Nazirov to seven and three years of imprisonment. According to investigators, Ionov recruited people to Karachay-Cherkessia, sent to the Moscow region, where Nazirov met them. He escorted them to the plane to Turkey, from where they were transported to IG.
Ten criminal cases were instituted in Tatarstan for participating in illegal armed groups in Syria. “Four people have been arrested, there are a number of cases in which the participation of people has been established, but they are not in place - they are fighting,” said the prosecutor of the republic Ildus Nafikov.
The Lefortovo Court of Moscow continues to consider the case of a student of the Astrakhan Medical Academy Saida Khalikova. According to investigators, she participated in the financing of the Islamic State. Special services recorded how she transferred 43 thousand rubles to the IG structures. She is charged with article 205.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Promoting terrorist activity”). Khalikova’s lawyer says that she did not know who exactly transferred the money. “She admitted that 43.6 thousand rubles. Last year, she transferred to the needs of a charity fund that helps “needing Muslim youth”, when it turned out that under the guise of donations, funds were actually raised for the “Islamic state,” the lawyer said. On June 10, 2015, the court extended the arrest of Khalikova until September 15.
On December 29, 2014, the Supreme Court of Russia recognized the organization of the Islamic State terrorist and banned its activities in the territory of the Russian Federation.
Daniil Turovsky
Moscow