80 Percent of Islamist Radicals in North Caucasus Children of Siloviki and Political Elites, Experts Say

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 13 –Moscow publicists have long insisted that young people from the poorer strata of society with few prospects are the group most likely to turn to Islamist radicalism and take part in militant actions (e.g., volg.mk.ru/articles/2017/04/28/pochemu-terroristy-prikryvayutsya-islamom.html).
    But that assumption has been challenged in recent times by the participation of children of elites in Islamist violence in Dagestan (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/children-of-elites-in-non-russian.html and kavkazr.com/a/radikaljnaya-zolotaya-molodezhj-v-dagestane-syna-eks-chinovnika-obvinili-v-napadenii-na-politseyskogo/33313697.html).
    And it has been shattered by those like Akhmet Yarlykapov, a specialist on the North Caucasus at Moscow’s MGIMO, who are impressed by a study that found that “about 80 percent of the supporters of radical ideology and forms of struggle [there] are children of the siloviki, businessmen, and employees of the administration” (lenta.ru/news/2024/06/24/islamoved-ob-yasnil-verbovku-rodstvennikov-chinovnika-dlya-teraktov-v-dagestane/).
    Other experts agree. Umar Khitinav, a Dagestani activist, says bluntly that the view that people “go underground due to lack of social lifts is wrong: these are not Latin American cartels or the mafia but rather ideological formations” and draw on those who believe in those ideas (kavkazr.com/a/radikaljnaya-zolotaya-molodezhj-v-dagestane-syna-eks-chinovnika-obvinili-v-napadenii-na-politseyskogo/33313697.html).
    And Aleksandr Cherkasov, a Memorial human rights activist, says that it is no surprise that children of the elite are being radicalized. They “see the distance between the slogans proclaimed by their fathers and the reality in which their parents live,” and they view radical Islam as a means of escaping from that conflicted situation and “the shackles” it imposes.