The Makhachkala airport rampage is just the beginning of jihadist activity

President Putin's response to the rampage on Makhachkala's airport shows signs that Dagestan's jihadist culture is still under the surface.

Executive Summary: Dagestan, a region known for producing top MMA fighters like Khabib Nurmagomedov, faces complex challenges. It boasts incredible ethnic diversity with over 30 distinct groups and languages. However, it grapples with severe economic issues, high unemployment, and poor infrastructure. Social stigma and discrimination against Dagestanis, exacerbated by media portrayal and historical tensions, contribute to social unrest. The region's security concerns, stemming from past conflicts and marginalization, pose ongoing challenges, potentially impacting global security dynamics.

Beyond Stereotypes: Understanding Dagestan's Complex Reality and the impact on international security

Popularly, Americans tend to recognize Dagestan for two things. First, having some of the world's best Mixed Martial Artists such as UFC Champions Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev. Secondly, Dagestan is infamous for the Tsarnaev brothers who orchestrated the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. The stereotype only emboldens when people from Dagestan commit terrorists acts such as the deadly female suicide bomber in 2016 at police depot near the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

So, it seems par for the course when a racially charged mob of men, decked out in tracksuits no less, rampaged the Makhachkala airport in late October 2023. The men besieged shuttle busses hunting Israeli nationals and Jews. A Muslim Uzbek doctor was nearly lynched for suspected Jewish identity. Even though the Dagestan stereotype seems to fit due to this mob, there is more to the picture worth consideration.

Roughly the size of Alabama, Dagestan is one of the most ethnically diverse places per square feet. Actually, Dagestani is not an ethnicity. It is a descriptor of the region for a collective group of completely distinct peoples. The Nakh, Dargins, Avars, Laks, Nogais, Lezgins, and Kumyks are the more populous tribes and clans. There is a mixture of Turkic, Persian, Chechen, Ingush, and Circassian ancestry. Russian serves as the bridge language in Dagestan since there are nearly 50 mutually unintelligible spoken and written languages.

Some Dagestani people do not grow up in a household of fluent Russian speakers. Even then, there are substantial variances in accent and speech patterns for fluent Russian speakers from this region. Some Russians perceive their modification on the Russian language as uneducated. But linguistically it is more a question of native intonation, grammar structure, and phonetics. A similar dynamic is heard in the spoken Russian of peoples from the Caucasus region and Central Asia, too.

Dagestan sits between the Caspian Sea and great Caucasian Mountain ridge, which is a region flush with natural resources and oil. Yet, Dagestan has poor critical infrastructure. In villages locals go without plumping, using public wells because they must. Unemployment rates are high while higher education is low. Dagestan is a poor, impoverished region compared to the rest of Russia. This speaks volumes since life is difficult in Russia for those in relatively good circumstances.

To add on top of it all, there is a concentration of racism aimed at people from the North Caucasus. Dagestani people especially take the brunt of stereotypes cast as radical Muslim rednecks. There are “black” racial slurs used to describe people from the North Caucasus. The term mainly targets people from Dagestan, or Turkic and Persian ethnicities, since they tend not to have the paler skin tone, green or blue eyes and blonde or reddish hair colors common among their neighbors in Chechnya, Alania, and Ossetia.

Even then, the other Caucasians gang up on the Dagestani. Often labeling them as "backward", "country", and "wild" in comparison to themselves. Usually on Russian television, the Dagestani are portrayed as bandits, harassers, and ignoramuses. The TV show “Interns” referenced in the video attempts to use humor to highlight the racism. When Dagestanis beat the odds and make it in higher education or the professional world, it is assumed among Russians that “bribes” or “purchased diplomas” were involved. Sometimes, this is true of many ethnic groups in Russia to include Slavic, Orthodox Christians.

Since the Russian government heavily manages the disruption of wealth, success in life is hard even for those with cultural and socio-economic advantages. A Russian professional, who is fluent in proper Russian and highly educated as a doctor or scientist will still struggle. Doctors, scientists, and physicists in the public sector are not wealthy people. Financially, the Russian economic system is not designed to pay or elevate the professional classes.

As a Dagestani native, Khabib Nurmagomedov has referenced subtly in post match interviews the uphill reality for his people in Russia. Once, he called Dagestanis “simple” which was a compliment in the sense that as rural folk they want for little in life. To that end Mr. Nurmagomedov invests his fame and earnings back into his broken community. Sports such as wrestling are a major part of the male culture, forming a methodological gateway to manhood. Mr. Nurmagomedov’s efforts are important to Eurasian security because his sports-centric community contains a group of young men who grew up with consistent instability since the 1990s.

Due to the spillover from the Chechen Wars, Dagestan had a rough stretch between 1998-2018. Car bombs were a weekly occurrence. The local shuttle system marshrutka was plagued with suicide bombers. The Russian counterterrorism forces enforced "elimination and eradication policies" that destroyed homes without sufficient compensation. People were arrested without due process. Commonly, men and women disappeared. The rock beds of the male Muslim community “the Imams” would disappear, which in turn created hidden religious networks.

The cauldron of bad governance inside of Dagestan has broader implications for the international community. Dagestan has been the epicenter for armed conflict in Russia for nearly 20 years. The global side effect were the foreign fighter flows, heavy with Russian-speakers, circa 2014 to Syria and Iraq.

Unfortunately, the Makhachkala mob indicates a new generational recruitment pool in Dagestan. Looking to the future, the children of this time are now young men and women. When someone’s childhood is this sort of reality, it is no wonder why radical ideology takes hold of people. Furthermore the use of common languages amongst people of the former Soviet Union, like Russian, enables mass ideological proliferation.

Due to the nature of global communications, Dagestan's issues will continue to resonate with those Muslim Russian-speakers living in Europe who empathize with the plight of their people and those like them. For better or worse "social media serves as megaphone to the rest of the world" to quote Elon Musk. In this case definitely worse.

The bombings and conflict occur less in Dagestan these days, but the Makhachkala mob amassed hundreds of young men quickly. It seems the Muslim population in Dagestan is still socially segregated from the rest of Russian society. In part, the lack of social integration contributes to Dagestan’s role as a cultural hub for jihadist networks.

President Putin's response to the Makhachkala rampage shows a nonacceptance of the very deep and serious socio-cultural problems. Mr. Putin blamed the mob on Ukraine and its “neighbors” as a political ruse for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Likely, Dagestan’s problems will continue as unaddressed by the Russian government. The absence of socio-economic growth for this region may indicate a resurgence of global jihadism over the next 10 years.

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Gray Truths©️2024