The Caucasus Emirate

The latest bulletin from Stratfor on the Caucasus makes intriguing reading. If the single-source account of the role of the Russian FSB in discrediting Doku Umarov and his dream of a North Caucasian Emirate is true - damn, they're good!

The most serious threat to Russian imperial expansion into the Caucasus was led by Shamil, an ethnic Avar from Dagestan. The so-called Caucasian War was the Russian conquest of the North Caucasian Muslim tribes, including Dagestanis, Chechens, Ingush, Ossetians, Karachay and Circassians.

Shamil became chief among those leading a united resistance in the name of a Caucasian Imamate, and was the third and last Imam from 1834 until captured in 1859. His grandson played a leading role in the short-lived Republic of the Northern Caucasus (1917-20).

One can well understand why the FSB should have been very keen to prevent history repeating itself.