Return from jihad

As one of the leaders of the IS ended up in Ukraine

Last week in Kiev, one of the key figures of the Islamic State was detained ( the organization is prohibited in the Russian Federation. - Ed. )-al-Bara Shishani. He turned out to be a Georgian citizen Caesar Tokhosashvili, he was the deputy “Minister of War” by IG Umar Shishani.

In 2017, news appeared that al-Bara, along with his wife and children, was killed during the escape from Rakka, when a large-scale offensive began on the Syrian part of the territories of the Islamic State. However, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, which detained him along with the CIA and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Tokhosashvili fled first to Turkey, and in 2018, according to fake documents, he drove into Ukraine.

Who was al-Bara?

Caesar Tokhosashvili was born in the village of Omalo in the Pankisi Gorge in the north of Georgia, on the border with Dagestan and Chechnya. There are several villages in the gorge, about 10 thousand people live in them, almost all - ethnic cysts, Chechens, who moved several centuries ago to the territory of modern Georgia. Several hundreds are Chechens who escaped from the first and second wars for the independence of Ichkeria in the late 90s-the beginning of the zero.

During the Second Chechen War, at the very beginning of the zero, Caesar was about fifteen years old and, according to his former associate, he participated in partisan sorties to the mountains on the border with Russia and watched the movements of the federal troops. In total, from 50 to 200 people left from the Pankis gorge to Syria. Most of them joined the Islamic State, some to other groups of militants. For example, Muslim Shishani, aka Murad Margoshvili, is fighting in the Latakia area in the north of Syria until now, under the wing of Al-Nusra ( the organization is prohibited in the Russian Federation. - Ed. ).

According to the researcher of the Foundation of International and Strategic Research by Georgia Aleko Kvakhadze, Caesar Tokhosashvili before becoming Deputy Minister of War Umar, fought in a group with Muslim Shishani. However, they had a personal conflict that resulted in shooting. Caesar was seriously wounded by his hand and was treated for a long time in Turkey. And when he returned to Syria, he decided to create his own group, but was to keep it without resources. Then Caesar proposed to go to the IS Chechen Ahmed Chataev.

Chataev was called the organizer of the attack at Istanbul airport in June 2016, when 43 people were killed and more than 240 were injured. According to Kvakhadze and other sources familiar with the alignment of forces in the North Caucasian composition of IG, Ahmed Chataev led the secret police of the Islamic State - Amniyta. He specialized in recruitment in the IG and the organization of special operations and terrorist attacks. Caesar Tokhosashvili became deputy of his comrade, “Minister of War” by IG Umara Shishani (Tarkhan BatiRASHVILI, also a native of the Pankisian gorge) and joined the coordination of amniyat along with Chataev. It is interesting that at the end of 2017, after a long lull, Chataev returned to Georgia (how - the question of the Georgian intelligence services, which they still have not answered), where the CIA employees along with the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs discovered it. Later, an intercepted audio recording was published from the messenger, in which he said to one of the main executioners of ISIS, a native of the Karachay-Cherkessia Abu Jihad, which is planning terrorist attacks in Georgia.

The SBU claims that Tokhosashvili continued to coordinate amniya, having moved to Ukraine.

According to the source in the SBU, he talked with members of the IG living in the country.

Was there a IS in Ukraine?

Ukraine rarely falls into the news in the same connection with the Islamic State. According to data that are in open sources (Link), the number of Ukrainians who have gone to fight for terrorists in Syria does not exceed 50 people. The Security Service of Ukraine during 2014-2018 periodically reported the detention of certain “representatives of the Islamic state”. True, sometimes journalists and activists managed to find out that the detainees were never in the Middle East and had nothing to do with terrorism (for example, several stories).

In Ukraine, there were never groups that would publicly declare the support of the “Islamic state”, called for terrorist attacks in the country or took responsibility for any crimes of the IS. Nevertheless, in an interview that the author of this text conducted with former IS members, they reported that the so -called “fans” live in several Ukrainian cities - people who sympathize with the activities of the “Islamic state”. Their sympathies are manifested, for example, in the fact that they can send money to members of ISIS, compensate for road expenses or help to get to the territory controlled by terrorists. At least such a situation was before the defeat of IG in Syria.

Why did Ukraine become a place where it is easy to hide?

Since large -scale military operations to destroy the “Islamic state” began in Iraq and Syria, the militants have been trying to flee to calmer countries. The main country is Türkiye, through which the key part of the traffic of IG members from the non -Arab countries passed. Some manage to penetrate the territory of European states under the guise of refugees. Someone is even trying to return home (for example, dozens of former IG members returned to Kyrgyzstan, many have already managed to sit down for this prison term). And someone chooses states with a weak system of external protection and weak internal control-young democracies like Ukraine.

In an interview, which were given by former participants in the Islamic State, who escaped in Ukraine, they said that Ukraine is a convenient place to hide. Among the reasons are a related language, a neutral attitude towards Muslims in society, the belief that Ukraine does not extradite foreigners to countries with an authoritarian regime, as well as the simplicity of obtaining fake documents at the expense of corruption. Most of these beliefs are error. However, similar reasons are also called political refugees who are forced to move away from persecution from Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries. For example, in September 2018, the Ukrainian prosecutor at the request of Russia extradited an Angushetia native of Timur Tumgoev, who was in the process of a refugee status, which is prohibited by the European Convention on Human Rights. When Tumgoev was in Russia, according to his representative, he was repeatedly beaten in the investigative insulator.

According to the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Caesar Tokhosashvili will be extradited to his homeland.

How and why did this problem ignore?

The Ukrainian authorities chose the position of silence the problem. A source in the leadership of the SBU in an interview with the author of this text said that there is an agreement with several European countries to not advertise the detention of members of the Islamic State and thereby not to attract the attention of terrorists.

In addition, some officials regarding the presence of former or current members of the IS in Ukraine were called misinformation from the Kremlin, launched in order to denigrate the country. For example, in 2017-2018, the then Deputy Minister of Information Policy Dmitry Zolotukhin repeatedly spoke that messages about the Igilovites in Ukraine are “Russian information special operation”. In 2019, the ministry, under its authorship, even issued the publication “White Book” about Russian information operations against Ukraine, in which he described this case as a proven fact.

However, the arrest of one of the leaders of the “Islamic state” in Kyiv more than a year after he arrived in the country, and the fact that he coordinated other IG members living in Ukraine suggests that the problem continues to exist.

Author: Katerina Sergaskova, editor -in -chief of the Skorona site.
Original on hromadske.ua.
Published with the support of the media network.