With 28-year-old Anatoly Zemlyanka’s notorious killing of 23-year-old member Magomed Khasiev, ethnic-Russian Muslims are again in the spotlight. Khasiev (a. k. a. Yevgeny Yudin), an ethnic-Russian convert to Islam, came from the Ural region in Russia, while Zemlyanka came from the Siberian town of Noyabrsk. Both men were allegedly members of the Islamic State (IS) and Khasiev was murdered by the IS for supposedly being a mole of the Federal Security Service (FSB) (see EDM, December 10). In recent years, ethnic-Russian militants have featured in numerous reports about government special operations against the insurgency in the North Caucasus. Two of the 11 militants killed on November 22, in one of the latest special operations in Kabardino-Balkaria, were ethnic-Russian converts to Islam (Kavkazsky Uzel, November 24).
Jamestown Foundation: Growing number of Russian converts to Islam joining insurgents at home and abroad
AFP
