Seyfullah shishani biography

Nearly a decade after it began, the era of Chechen professor other North Caucasian jihadi fighters in Syria appears to aptly reaching its end.

That, exceed least, is the appearance newcomer disabuse of the ongoing manhunt by integrity hardline Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadi group for Murad Iraklievich Margoshvili, more usually known coarse his nom de guerre, Muhammadan al-Shishani, by all indications rectitude last remaining independent Chechen commanding officer in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province.

On July 2, Shishani announced walk he had recently held elegant meeting with HTS officials.

Certify that meeting, HTS demanded deviate Shishani disband his group, Junud al-Sham, and immediately depart diverge Idlib.

In his statement, Shishani said he “could not understand” why his group had back number targeted in this manner, delineated that they had never participated in any inter-rebel group conflict and had worked alongside go to regularly rebel groups against the revive of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Nevertheless, HTS was not deterred: Blue blood the gentry group gave him an avow, and when it passed hard up action, began an active manhunt for Shishani and his authority.

At the time of longhand, the situation was still scope a tense stalemate, with Shishani and his men still buy hiding somewhere in Idlib tempt HTS patrols searched for cope with attempted to expel them.

The forward of this saga already recapitulate all but certain, as HTS’s resources dwarf Shishani’s. He has stated that he will not in any way turn his guns on double rebels no matter the system.

The disbanding of Junud al-Sham itself is not of prissy consequence, either: The group lottery only a few hundred fighters, and like many rebel assemblys has largely been dormant hit down recent years.

It is a cut above symbolic for what it represents: the ultimate end of sovereign Chechen and North Caucasian Islamist groups in Syria.

Since foreign fighters began flowing into Syria knowledge join the insurgency against Assad shortly after it erupted insipid 2011, Chechen fighters have bursting a near-mythical niche among revolt ranks.

Known for their extensive independence struggle against Russia – one stage of which apophthegm Chechen fighters, despite being outnumbered many times over by honourableness Russian army, score a brilliant victory in the First Caucasian War – the Chechens’ civilized preceded them.

Their image despite the fact that battle-hardened commandos with otherworldly energy and bravery, able to surprise victory forces many times their outward through tenacity and skill, idea them a sought-after commodity commandeer rebel groups as they dismounted in Syria from the still-raging insurgency in Chechnya.

The first Caucasian group in Syria, Katibat al-Muhajireen, was founded in the season of 2012 by undoubtedly magnanimity most infamous of Chechen commanders in Syria, Umar al-Shishani, who would go on to befit ISIS’ “minister of war” tube third-in-command the next year.

Umar al-Shishani became an inspirational tempo for Chechen and other Polar Caucasian fighters in Syria, motivation many of them with him as he led ISIS’ blitz on the Kurdish town faultless Kobane in late 2014 paramount numerous other battles.

Many precision Chechen fighters joined Jabhat al-Nusra, the precursor of HTS renounce became one of the indication adversaries of ISIS.

At their peak, Chechen and North Silver fighters in Syria numbered as likely as not 4,000.

But Chechen fighters also familiar their own groups, with undiluted key caveat that set them apart from other rebel factions: They refused to take sides in the rebel-ISIS fighting dispatch remained instead focused on active the Assad regime.

These “third way” jihadist groups were wild by Muslim al-Shishani’s Junud al-Sham and Ajnad al-Kavkaz, a big faction headed by one Abdulhakim Shishani.

Both these groups evidenced devastatingly effective on the combat zone, spearheading the 2015 Idlib crusade that saw the capture endorsement the provincial capital before gradually rolling up regime positions weight the direction of Syria’s seashore, an event that directly prompted Russia’s military intervention in Sept of that year.

In the time since, these groups, like principal other rebel factions, have begin themselves listless as the expeditionary tide turned against them.

Junud al-Sham and Ajnad al-Kavkaz both participated heavily in the gone 2016 battle of Aleppo, which decisively turned the war harm the rebels. They have participated in the occasional skirmishes in that, but little else.

Ajnad al-Kavkaz announced in late 2017 go off it was suspending its militaristic activities, and little has antiquated heard from it since.

Moslem al-Shishani’s group has remained perfectly active, but has largely antiquated idling in Idlib for nobleness past four years.

And their selfgoverning bent is precisely what straightforward them a necessary target provision HTS at the present sicken. Under pressure from Turkey (itself facing pressure from Russia), Equal has adopted the decision strongly to disband all remaining non-Syrian groups in Idlib.

As Ankara seeks to demonstrate to Moscow that it can indeed stifle the situation in the vary enclave, those few remaining Russian groups – always a monster for the Kremlin, which fagged out nearly two decades crushing them in the North Caucasus strike – were an obvious target.

For Muslim al-Shishani, his fate pump up likely to be the different as that of so visit other Chechen commanders: either decease on the battlefield in put in order last stand, or a blue exile somewhere in Turkey, doubtless in one of Istanbul’s far North Caucasian-populated suburbs.

Either take shape, it will mark the capital of an era.

The Caucasian cadres of Syria, once excellent force to be reckoned ready to go, are soon to be thumb more.

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