Moscow Must Suppress Both Wahhabism and Salafism in Dagestan and Crimea or It will Face Expanded Terrorist Threats, Bortnikov Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 16 – Many observers and officials in Russia distinguish between Wahhabism which they view as extremist and Salafism which they say is a form of pure Islam. But on August 13, Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the FSB, said that Salafism was behind the recent terrorist attacks in Dagestan, is closely linked to Wahhabism, and must be suppressed.

            In 1999, Dagestan banned Wahhabism but has continued to engage in dialogue with Salafi leaders, failing to recognize the ways in which they are linked together. Moscow for its part has denounced both but banned neither. That must now change, Dagestani and Crimean experts say, or the Islamist underground will grow and more terrorist attacks will follow (vpoanalytics.com/sobytiya-i-kommentarii/ot-dagestana-do-kryma-iz-praktiki-protivodeystviya-radikalnoy-terroristicheskoy-ideologii/).

            But Salafism is already so widespread in Dagestan, Derbent journalist and commentator Milrad Fatullayev says, that the authorities will have to move carefully lest efforts to suppress it along with Wahhabism by themselves lead to a new explosion even worse than the recent events in his city, Makhachkala, and elsewhere.

            Bortnikov’s statement, Fatullayev says, gives him hope that Dagestan will move in the right direction, but he says he doesn’t expect Makhachkala to try to “liquidate independent mosques where the Salafis assemble.” Instead, the Dagestani government is likely to try to ensure that all mosques in the republic are under “the complete control of the security services.”

            If that step is taken, he continues, then mosques when registering with the state will “be required to stipulate that they will not preach extremism and terrorism, that is, Salafism and Wahhabism.” And if the authorities find evidence to the contrary, that will be sufficient to close this or that mosque.

            Another option, he says, is to “ban all mosques in the republic that do not obey the Dagestani muftiate. “If that is done, then in reality, “the state will control all mosques, their property, imams, preachers and parishioners,” a remarkably frank acknowledgement of the real role of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) there and elsewhere.

            Fatullayev also adds that Makhachkala must impose tighter controls on both boxing clubs where Salafism is already widespread and on Internet sites based abroad which promote those ideas and thus terrorism. But the authorities will also have to do that with extreme care lest they provoke the kind of explosion closing mosques would.

            Arsen Ganiyev, a lawyer in Russian-occupied Crimea, says that Moscow faces a similar problem there and must take similar steps and the Salafi-Wahhabi ideologues or face the prospect that a growing Islamist underground on the peninsula will soon emerge and carry out more terrorist attacks.