In this authoritative look at the roots of modern terrorism, Yossef Bodansky, one of the most respected—and best-informed—experts on radical Islamism in the world today, pinpoints the troubled region of Chechnya as a dangerous and little-understood crucible of terror in the struggle between East and West. In his number one New York Times bestseller, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, published before 9/11, Bodansky was among the first to introduce American readers to Osama bin Laden. Now in Chechen Jihad he returns to alert American readers to the lessons to be drawn from the terror campaign in Chechnya—and its ramifications for the global war on terrorism. The final years of U.S.-Soviet relations left Chechnya a fertile breeding ground for Islamic terrorism, and in the past decade an uneasy alliance of native Chechen separatists and militant jihadists have joined forces to help al Qaeda and the greater Islamist movement pursue its war against the West. As Bodansky points out, "the Chechens are professional fighters—disciplined and responsible, with a combination of skills, expertise, and character that has made them the most sought-after 'force multipliers' in the jihadist movement." Bodansky traces the secret history of the two Chechen wars, illuminating how the process of "Chechenization" transformed the fight from a secular nationalist struggle into a jihadist holy war against Russia and the secular West. And, in the most instructive message for Western audiences, he reveals how the Chechen rebellion was eventually crippled by a schism between the jihadists and the Chechen people whose nationalist rebellion they had co-opted—an object lesson in the potential vulnerability of Islamist campaigns around the world. Drawing on mountains of previously unseen intelligence from Islamist movements and other military and intelligence sources from throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as senior officials in many of the affected nations, Chechen Jihad offers an intimate and startling portrait of the jihadist movement that is astonishing in its detail and chilling in its implications—but one that points to a new way forward in the struggle to answer the challenges of international Islamist terrorism.

For the first time, a military expert on both Russia and insurgency offers the definitive guide on activities in Southern Russia, explaining why the Russian approach to counter terrorism is failing and why terrorist and insurgent attacks in Russia have sharply increased over the past three years. The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to Jihad is an comprehensive treatment of this 300 year-old conflict. Thematically organized, it cuts through the rhetoric to provide a contextual framework with which readers can truly understand the "why" and "how" of one of the world's longest-running contemporary insurgencies, despite Russia's best efforts to eradicate it. A fascinating case study of a counterinsurgency campaign that is in direct contravention of U.S. and Western strategy, the book also examines the differences and linkages between insurgency and terrorism; the origins of conflict in the North Caucasus; and the influences of different strains of Islam, of al-Qaida, and of the War on Terror. A critical examination of never-before-revealed Russian counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns explains why those campaigns have consistently failed and why the region has seen such an upswing in violence since the conflict was officially declared "over" less than two years ago.

The sheer scale and brutality of the hostilities between Russia and Chechnya stand out as an exception in the mostly peaceful breakup of the Soviet Union. Chechnya: From Nationalism to Jihad provides a fascinating analysis of the transformation of secular nationalist resistance in a nominally Islamic society into a struggle that is its antithesis, jihad. Hughes locates Chechen nationalism within the wider movement for national self-determination that followed the collapse of the Soviet empire. When negotiations failed in the early 1990s, political violence was instrumentalized to consolidate opposing nationalist visions of state-building in Russia and Chechnya. The resistance in Chechnya also occurred in a regional context where Russian hegemony over the Caucasus, especially the resources of the Caspian basin, was in retreat, and in an international context of rising Islamic radicalism. Alongside Bosnia, Kashmir, and other conflicts, Chechnya became embedded in Osama Bin Laden's repertoire of jihadist rhetoric against the "West." It was not simply Russia's destruction of a nationalist option for Chechnya, or "Wahabbist" infiltration from without, that created the political space for Islamism. Rather, we must look also at how the conflict was fought. The lack of proportionality and discrimination in the use of violence, particularly by Russia, accelerated and intensified the Islamic radicalization and thereby transformed the nature of the conflict. This nuanced and balanced study provides a much-needed antidote to the mythologizing of Chechen resistance before, and its demonization after, 9/11. The conflict in Chechnya involves one of the most contentious issues in contemporary international politics—how do we differentiate between the legitimate use of violence to resist imperialism, occupation, and misgovernment, and the use of terrorism against legitimate rule? This book sets out indispensable lessons for understanding conflicts involving the volatile combination of nationalist insurgency, jihad, and terrorism, most notably for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2013, the United States suffered its worst terrorist bombing since 9/11 at the annual running of the Boston Marathon. When the culprits turned out to be U.S. residents of Chechen descent, Americans were shocked and confused. Why would members of an obscure Russian minority group consider America their enemy? Inferno in Chechnya is the first book to answer this riddle by tracing the roots of the Boston attack to the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia. Brian Glyn Williams describes the tragic history of the bombers' war-devastated homeland-including tsarist conquest and two bloody wars with post-Soviet Russia that would lead to the rise of Vladimir Putin-showing how the conflict there influenced the rise of Europe's deadliest homegrown terrorist network. He provides a historical account of the Chechens' terror campaign in Russia, documents their growing links to Al Qaeda and radical Islam, and describes the plight of the Chechen diaspora that ultimately sent two Chechens to Boston. Inferno in Chechnya delivers a fascinating and deeply tragic story that has much to say about the historical and ethnic roots of modern terrorism.

Russia's North Caucasus mujahedin of the self-declared Caucasus Emirate and the history thereof is part and parcel of the global jihadi revolutionary movement which includes but is no longer led by Al Qaeda. This book corrects the inadequate previous treatments of the violence in the Caucasus, almost all of which explain what ought to be called the rise of jihadism in the Caucasus solely in terms of Russian actions. The author brings the international jihadist and local North Caucasian causes back into the picture, detailing the global Jihadist/Islamist revolutionary movement's propagation of the "jihadi method" and material support to nationalist and Islamic extremists in Chechnya and the Caucasus since the mid-1990s. Like jihadi groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Africa, the Caucasus Emirate is an Al Qaeda ally and de facto affiliate. It represents a threat to Russian, U.S., and international security as evidenced by terrorist plots perpetrated or inspired by it in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Azerbaijan, and Boston.

The three papers offered in this monograph provide a detailed analysis of the insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns being conducted by Islamist rebels against Russia in the North Caucasus. This conflict is Russia's primary security threat, but it has barely registered on Western minds and is hardly reported in the West as well. To overcome this neglect, these three papers go into great detail concerning the nature of the Islamist challenge, the Russian response, and the implications of this conflict. This monograph, in keeping with SSI's objectives, provides a basis for dialogue among U.S., European, and Russian experts concerning insurgency and counterinsurgency, which will certainly prove useful to all of these nations, since they will continue to be challenged by such wars well into the future. It is important for us to learn from the insurgency in the North Caucasus, because the issues raised by this conflict will not easily go away, even for the United States as it leaves Afghanistan.

Why contemporary Russia is a dangerous seedbed for radicalized Islam and what we should be doing about it The notion that the Chechen-led jihad in the North Caucasus is an indigenous affair, far removed from the global Islamist jihad, is perhaps comforting to Americans and other Westerners, but it is a myth. Moreover, the North Caucasus jihad may be the harbinger of a much larger Muslim challenge to Russia's political stability and state integrity. So concludes Gordon M. Hahn in this meticulously researched analysis of Russia's emerging Islamic threat. Hahn draws an explicit picture of an already sophisticated and effective Chechen jihadist network that is expanding the territorial scope of its operations with inspiration and some assistance from the global jihadist movement. Given its proximity to large stockpiles of diverse weapons, the expanding population of Russian-based Islamist terrorists is particular cause for alarm, the author warns. The book lifts the veil on the Muslim challenge to Russia's political stability, national security, and state integrity as well as the potentially grave threat to international and U.S. security. Hahn shows that many of the demographic, historical, socioeconomic, political, and religious factors sparking jihadi revolution in Muslim countries are extant in Russia and are driving revolutionary Islamist terrorism there. In a penetrating conclusion to the book, the author analyzes the policies that have fueled the rise of militant Islam and offers a series of important recommendations for policymakers.