Experts: militants in Caucasus can be controlled from outside

In Northern Caucasus, militants actively use Internet. This opinion was expressed by political analyst Akhmet Yarlykapov. His colleague Yana Amelina believes that militants have no need to use modern means of communication.

The network of the "Imarat Kavkaz" is largely controlled through the Internet, and its leaders rarely come into contact with each other. This was stated by Akhmet Yarlykapov, Senior Researcher of the Centre for Ethno-Political Studies of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).

According to him, the Kabardino-Balkarian armed underground is concentrated not in the mountains and forests, like militants in Dagestan and Chechnya, but in the capital of the republic. This fact is evidenced by numerous detentions of militants in the very city and the killing of Anzor Astemirov, the leader of the armed underground of Kabardino-Balkaria, in Nalchik in 2010.

The period when "the forest" experienced "serious communication problems" has gone, and at present, the communication possibility of militants have greatly expanded, notes Orkhan Djemal, a Forbes reporter.

Yana Amelina, Secretary-Coordinator of the Caucasus Geopolitical Club, believes that social networks are just a source of primary information and that there are no trends of direction of orders through the Internet. According to Yana Amelina, the territorial units of the "Islamic State" or the "Imarat Kavkaz" are largely autonomous, as evidenced by a power struggle between their leaders.

According to retired FSB Colonel Gennady Gudkov, the former Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Security, militant groupings is controlled both through the Internet and through personal meetings.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.