Will This Chechen Warlord be Forced out of Idlib? A Profile of Muslim Abu Walid al-Shishani
Will This Chechen Warlord be Forced out of Idlib? A Profile of Muslim Abu Walid al-Shishani
In June, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, or HTS) demanded that the Chechen warlord Muslim Shishani join their organization or leave Idlib, Syria. Reports of the demand emerged on June 27. A local news agency in its reporting referred to Muslim Shishani as a “well-known and respected long-time mujahid commander” (YouTube, June 27).
HTS reportedly asked Muslim Shishani and the militant group he commands, Junud al-Sham (Soldiers of the Levant), to join its ranks and submit to its policies or leave its area of control and move to the territories held by the Free Syrian Army factions that are more closely aligned with Turkey. Currently, Junud al-Sham (a.k.a. Jund al-Sham, not to be confused with the original Jund al-Sham founded in 1991 in Jordan) has outposts in the Latakia countryside, west of Idlib province. The group has operated in Syria for eight years and has been among the longest-surviving militant organizations in the country.
Muslim Shishani allegedly rejected HTS’ demands. The militant commander issued an indignant, but diplomatic public statement about being singled out by HTS for unknown reasons. Shishani asked HTS to allow his faction to continue fighting Syrian government forces. In return, the Chechen commander promised not to interfere in the social and political affairs of Idlib, which is under the control of HTS. Observers doubt that Muslim Shishani and his group will leave the province. According to an anonymous source in HTS’ leadership, Junud al-Sham only has about 60 members and its importance has been exaggerated. HTS leaders believe that the group has criminals within its ranks who have tried to escape prosecution. At the same time, HTS denies that it opposes other groups fighting the Syrian regime (al-Monitor July 2; Chechensinsyria.com July 2).
HTS itself has a highly problematic reputation. In May 2018, the U.S. State Department labeled the group a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), in line with the designation placed on its predecessor organization, the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. In 2016 and 2017, Jabhat al-Nusra signaled that it was breaking ties with al-Qaeda, changing its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and then eventually aligning with several smaller organizations to form HTS (Al Jazeera, July 29, 2016). The U.S. government has kept HTS on the list of terrorist organizations despite the latter’s rebranding efforts. Regional analysts say that the U.S. wants to see HTS disbanded. In 2020, the U.S. Department of State’s Reward for Justice Program upped the reward for information on the leader of the organization Abu Mohammed al-Jolani to $10 million (al-Monitor, December 21, 2020).
According to some sources, Turkey is putting pressure on HTS to eradicate the other jihadist groups in Idlib. Ankara reportedly wants to appease Moscow and present HTS as a moderate organization that both countries can deal with in the rebel-held province. Given the vehemence with which Russia has cracked down on Chechen fighters at home and abroad, it is plausible that Russian security services have engaged in negotiations to target, disperse and eradicate any militant groups containing Chechens, such as Muslim Shishani’s Junud al-Sham. Turkey and Russia are engaged in complex negotiations to reach a settlement on Idlib. Removing Chechen groups from the political scene might be part of such a settlement (al-Monitor, July 2; al-Monitor, June 26, 2020).
Who is Muslim Shishani?
Muslim Shishani (a.k.a. Muslim Abu Walid al-Shishani) is the nom de guerre of Murad Iraklievich Margoshvili, who comes from the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. The U.S. designated Shishani as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2014. The State Department regarded him as “a well-known Chechen leader in Syria who built a terrorist training base in Syria near the Turkish border, where newly arrived foreign fighters received combat training.” The agency pointed out that Shishani was the leader of Junud al-Sham, “a militant group that fights alongside other extremist groups in Syria.” The State Department also designated a group called Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (Army of Emigrants and Supporters) as a terrorist organization at the same time as Shishani. That militant organization was also dominated by Chechens (State.gov, September 24, 2014).
At the time of Shishani’s SDGT designation, the most prominent Chechen militant in Iraq and Syria was Tarkhan Batirashvili (a.k.a. Abu Omar al-Shishani). Like Muslim Shishani, Batirashvili was also from the Pankisi area in Georgia and a veteran of the 2008 Russian-Georgian War. He became a jihadist after being discharged from the Georgian military for health reasons. He led the militant group Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar before joining Islamic State (IS). Batirashvili rapidly progressed to senior commanding positions in the extremist organization (Kavkaz-Center, July 2, 2014). He was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2016 (Kavkazsky Uzel, July 20, 2018).
Muslim Shishani, 49, was born Murad Margoshvili in Duisi Pankisi, Georgia (other sources claim he was born in Grozny, Chechnya). Pankisi is adjacent to Chechnya and primarily populated by ethnic Chechens also known in Georgia as Kists – a Chechen subgroup. The Pankisi area lies on the southern slopes of the Caucasus mountains and is part of Georgia, unlike Chechnya proper, which is situated on the northern slopes of the mountains and is part of Russia. During the Russian-Chechen wars of 1994-1996 and 1999-2001, Pankisi experienced large influxes of Chechen refugees, which caused further disruption to an already impoverished region.
According to Russian sources, as part of his compulsory military conscript service, Shishani served in a Soviet air defense unit in Mongolia. In 1995, he joined a group fighting the invasion of Russian forces into the separatist Republic of Ichkeria – modern day Chechnya. Reportedly, he was acquainted with the Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev, Yemeni militant Abu Jafar and Saudi Arabian militant Abu al-Walid (hence, Shishani’s later nickname Muslim Abu Walid al-Shishani, after the original Abu al-Walid was killed in Tsa-Vedeno in Chechnya in 2004). Shishani quickly rose to the rank of the emir of Vedeno. In 2002, Abu Walid reportedly sent him to organize a new front in the Sunzha raion, or district, located on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia.
In October 2003, Shishani was arrested by Russian security forces and spent two and a half years in prison. In 2004, the militant was convicted of being a member of an illegal armed group. In 2006, the Supreme Court of the Russian region of Ingushetia (next door to Chechnya) exonerated and released him from detention. After his release, Shishani returned to Georgia for medical treatment. Once there, he helped groups of militants cross from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge to Chechnya, according to Russian sources. Some alleged that he cooperated with Georgian security services (Rusvesna, January 14, 2016). Shishani likely agreed to be recruited by Russian intelligence services while he was in prison in exchange for an early release. The recruitment seemed to have failed, as the Chechen militant formed an extremist group and in 2012 moved to Syria to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime. A Chechen fighter’s relocation to the Middle East was not surprising given the substantial presence of Arab jihadist fighters in Chechnya during the Russian-Chechen wars and the interwar period (see TM, January 31, 2006).
Operating in Syria
By 2016, Shishani’s group was said to be in severe decline. Junud al-Sham’s membership was reduced to a handful of individuals. In a Russian-language interview in 2018, Shishani asked fellow Muslims for financial help and called for new recruits. The field commander tried to strike a conciliatory note with rival factions, but in doing so exposed information on multiple ongoing conflicts between jihadist groups in the Middle East. Shishani attributed the lack of support for his organization to the confusion that many Muslims have about joining the “right” militant group. Shishani chided Islamist leaders who provided confusing advice on the correct direction of jihad. He himself offered little guidance, but assured his audience that many capable people are willing to join the jihadist cause and fight in the “right” way (OGN, October 25, 2018).
Shishani does not lack conflicts with fellow jihadists, including among his compatriot Georgians. According to sources in Georgia, Tsezar Tokhosashvili (a.k.a. al-Bara Shishani) came from the village of Omalo in Pankisi and was part of Margoshvili’s group before 2015, when he joined Islamic State. A disagreement between the two militant leaders resulted in a shootout. Tokhosashvili received serious injuries in the incident and had to go to a hospital in Turkey for treatment. Later, Tokhosashvili returned to Syria to form his own group of militants, but joined Islamic State instead, allegedly due to a lack of funding. Al-Bara Shishani served as a deputy to another Chechen, Abu Omar al-Shishani (a.k.a. Tarkhan Batirashvili), the man the U.S. Defense Department described as Islamic State’s “minister of war.” When the latter was killed in a 2016 airstrike, Tokhosashvili reportedly fled from Iraq to Turkey. In 2019, he was arrested in Ukraine (Novaya Gazeta, November 22, 2019; ZN.ua, May 18, 2020).
Since Muslim Shishani’s group Junud al-Sham has operated in Syria for such an extended period of time–eight years–it is the “default” militant group for new recruits from the Caucasus to join. Many militants from the North and South Caucasus have seemingly spent at least some time in the ranks of Junud al-Sham. For example, when the leader of the Caucasus Emirate in the Middle East (not to be confused with the original Caucasus Emirate founded by Doku Umarov in 2007 in the North Caucasus) was killed in Syria in May 2020, his suspected killers were identified as militants who had previously been part of Junud al-Sham (Kavkazsky Uzel, May 19, 2020).
Fights Against Islamic State after being Declared Dead
As frequently happens with militants, the media has erroneously reportedly Shishani’s death. In 2018, Iraqi media reported that government forces had killed Muslim Abu Walid al-Shishani in the area of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Russian media mistakenly or purposely called him “the advisor and the right hand” of then Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Sputnik, April 9, 2018).
Meanwhile, Shishani has repeatedly criticized Islamic State and the two groups have fought each other (aymennjawad.org, September 8, 2019). The inter-Chechen rift between those who support IS and those who are against the group, such as Shishani, goes back several years (rferl.org, January 28, 2015). Shishani also denied information about his group’s involvement in Turkish operations against Kurdish forces, which some Turkish-language media had touted (Eadaily.com, January 28, 2018).
Conclusion
Muslim Shishani and his group’s long survival in Syria indicates that he is a reasonably skilled diplomat who has managed to navigate between competing factions and avoid being caught in the crossfire. The latest conflict between HTS and Shishani illustrates the high stakes involved in HTS’ efforts to normalize itself in the eyes of the world by picking conflicts with extremist groups like Junud al-Sham. Though Shishani appears to possess substantial diplomatic abilities and has managed to survive for years while operating in the turbulent Syrian civil war, the non-Arab fighters will still likely be pushed out and replaced by local groups and commanders. The decline of IS and other non-state actors curbed the inflow of fresh recruits from the Caucasus, which will reinforce this trend. The remaining Chechens and Caucasians will likely either seek refuge outside the Middle East or try to blend into their local environs as much as they are able to.
