| Ingush Jamaat | |
|---|---|
| Participant in Second Chechen War, Insurgency in the North Caucasus | |
| Active | since 2000 |
| Leaders | Ilias Gorchkhanov † Akhmed Yevloyev (Emir Magas) (POW) Isa Khashegulgov (Emir Adam) |
| Opponents | Russia, Ingush loyalists, Ossetians |
Ingush Jamaat, also known as the Ingush sector of the Caucasian Front, is an Islamist militant organization connected to numerous attacks against the local and federal security forces in the Russian region of Ingushetia and Chechnya in the North Caucasus. In 2005 it became a part of the Caucasian Front of the Second Chechen War and in 2007 it joined the Caucasus Emirate. The Jamaat is thought to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, mostly policemen, military personnel and officials.
The origins of the Ingush Jamaat can be found during the First Chechen War. The Ingush are closely related to the Chechens. Both peoples are part of the Vainakh tribes, speak Nakh languages and share a common culture. Many of the Ingush lived in the Chechen capital of Grozny during the outbreak of the war and fought along with the Chechen separatists, but did not have enough time to create their own separate unit as they were scattered among various Chechen units under the commands of Ruslan Gelayev and Shamil Basayev. These Ingush played a large role in the 1996 siege of Grozny; it took Russian forces over 15 months to capture Bamut, a small border village, because help from Ingushetia arrived almost every day. Many think that it was thanks to the moderate Ruslan Aushev, then president of Ingushetia who opposed Russia's military campaign, that the conflict did not spread to Ingushetia.
After the Second Chechen War broke out, many of the Ingush fighters that had still felt closely related to their destroyed home-city Grozny started rebuilding their military units in Ingushetia, still loyal to Aslan Maskhadov and Basayev. The Ingush units reportedly took heavy losses during the retreat through the mine-fields of the Battle of Grozny (1999–2000) and it took a lot of time to reform them; eventually in 2000-2001 the jamaat was reformed along territorial lines in Ingushetia proper, with many units tied to a single city or area. Following the changes in the organisation, all Ingush units started working under the unified Jamaat Shariat (not to be confused with Dagestan's Shariat Jamaat). In 2004 the Jamaat was renamed to Shariat Special Operations Group in accordance with the wishes of Maskhadov; later this changed to Ingush sector of the South-Western Front and finally, when Abdul-Halim Sadulayev created the Caucasian Front, Sadulayev referred to it as the Ingush sector of the Caucasus Front. Despite its many name changes it is mostly referred to simply as the Ingush Jamaat.[1][2]
The group played a key role in the 2004 Nazran raid, an important event which helped to escalate the low-level Ingush insurgency since 2002 into the increasing unrest[3] and eventually into a "civil war", in which more than 800 people died in this tiny republic of less than 500,000 by November 2008.[4] It also took part in the 2005 Nalchik raid, organized by the local Kabardino-Balkar group Yarmuk Jamaat. Following the death of Ilyas Gorchkhanov in Nalchik, the leader of the Ingush Jamaat was Akhmed Yevloyev until his capture in June 2010.[5] Later in 2010, the Jamaat adopted more nationalist rhetoric, vowing to "temporarily" stop killing Ingush policemen[6] and instead attack targets in North Ossetia and help to reclaim the native Ingush lands of Prigorodny District. The group also reaffirmed its loyalty to Umarov following the rejection of his leadership by the Chechen rebels.[7]