Agents of chaos: ISIL using Ukraine as a forward base into Caucasia and entry into Europe
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya | Strategic Culture Foundation
Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion in Ukraine. This image may confirm what many had been fearing all along: the introduction of ISIL into the Ukrainian cauldron, as witting instruments of the West. How many reactionary masks can Washington deploy?
[dropcap]”In the West[/dropcap], most look at the war in Ukraine as simply a battle between Russian-backed separatists and the Ukrainian government. But the truth on the ground is now far more complex, particularly when it comes to the volunteer battalions fighting on the side of Ukraine,” according to Marcin Mamon. [1] What the Polish filmmaker is talking about is the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) / Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)/Islamic State (IS)/ Al-Dawlah Al-Islamiyah fe Al-Iraq wa Al-Sham (DAISH/DAESH) fighters, which include Chechen separatists, that have gone to fight in Ukraine.
It is no coincidence that one of the bases of the alliance between China, Russia, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is to fight what they call the “three evil forces” of “terrorism, extremism and separatism.” The intersectionality of these forces is clear through the deployment to Ukraine of the ISIS/ISIL/IS/DAISH/DAESH to fight as comrades alongside racists ultra-nationalists, and as allies of the US government.
Business and Conquest: Kolomoisky and the Jihadis-For-Hire
Igor Kolomoisky typifies the capitalist infection at its most lethal. Without the influence of America as the citadel of this criminal system, repulsive scum like Kolomoisky would not exist. The greatest and cruelest irony is that Kolomoisky is a Jew fanning the flames of fascism.
“Ostensibly state-sanctioned, but not necessarily state-controlled, some have been supported by Ukrainian oligarchs, and others by private citizens,” Mamon notes about these foreign fighters. [2] Kolomoisky’s ties to ISIS/ISIL/IS/DAISH/DAESH are also revealed by Mamon. Mamon explains that “Kolomoisky helped create the first volunteer battalions — the Dnipro and Dnipro-1 — each with about 500 people. For several months, he also financially supported several other battalions, including Azov, Aidar, Donbass, and Right Sector battalion.” [2] These were the first private armies in post-EuroMaidan Ukraine. This was only the start. Then the Ukrainian oligarch “invited the Chechens, hoping they would protect his businesses and factories, if needed.” [3]
Mamon reports that in Eastern Ukraine, flags signifying jihad can even be observed flying over the bases of some of these private battalions. [4] According to him there are three volunteer battalions with a significant number of Muslim fighters operating in Ukraine: (1) the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion which operates throughout the conflict zone in the Donbas; (2) the Sheikh Mansour battalion, which is based around Mariupol and splintered off from the Dudayev Battalion; and (3) the Crimea Battalion, which is based in Krematorsk. [5] There is also a company of Crimean Tatar fighters that operate as part of a company (sotnya/sotnia), according to Mamon. [6]
“For those looking for an easy narrative in today’s wars, whether in the Middle East or in eastern Ukraine, the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion is not the place to find it, Mamon explains. [7] He then describes how the Ukraine is a Playground for Organized Crime for Organizing Funds for ISIL
When the anti-Kiev forces in East Ukraine or Novorossiya stopped short of entering Kolomoisky’s business base and personal fiefdom in Dnipropetrovsk, the Ukrainian oligarch “suddenly lost interest and stopped paying the volunteer battalions. The Right Sector battalion responded by seizing his property, but Munayev couldn’t do that. He was a foreigner, and feared the Ukrainian authorities would regard his battalion as an illegal armed group, then disband it. Munayev was bitter, but would not openly speak ill of the authorities in Kiev.” [11] Like Syria or Kosovo, Ukraine is a playground for these agents of chaos. “You can also do business in Ukraine that’s not quite legal. You can earn easy money for the brothers fighting in the Caucasus, Syria and Afghanistan. You can ‘legally’ acquire unregistered weapons to fight the Russian-backed separatists, and then export them by bribing corrupt Ukrainian customs officers,” Mamon explains. [12] When Mamon when to meet the Chechen separatist commander Isa Munayev in 2014, he writes that Munayev was not fighting in the frontlines in Donbas. The militia leader “was busy training forces and organizing money and weapons, from Kiev.” [13] Although it does not exclusively mean criminal enterprise, “organizing money” includes amoral forbidden by Islam and criminal activities. Mamon explains that how Ruslan, one of Isa Munayev’s men, had gone to Western Ukraine and disappeared for several weeks in Rivne. “When he returned, he was disappointed; he’d failed to convince the local mafia to cooperate,” he explains about Ruslan’s mission. [14] “But now, he has other arguments to persuade them. His men are holding up the mines, by not allowing anyone into the forest. Either the local gangsters share their profits, or no one will get paid,” he adds. [15] Isa Munayev
Moreover, Ruslan setup a “direct response group” in Kiev to “collect debts or scare off competition. There’s no doubt the new branch will work behind the lines, where there isn’t war, but there is money — as long as you know where to get it. If need be, the direct response group volunteers will watch over the mines in Rivne, or ‘will acquire’ money from illegal casinos, which operate by the hundreds in Kiev. [16]
Aside from collecting money, the “direct response group” that has Isa Munayev setup in Kiev will act as a means of retaliation against the authorities in Kiev or anyone that tried to antagonize the so-called “brothers.” “The group will be a sort of rear echelon unit that take care of problems, like if someone tries to discredit the Dudayev battalion,” according to Mamon. [17]
Using Ukraine as a Bridgehead to Reignite Fighting in the North Caucasus
While Syria and Iraq are being used as stepping stones by the US against Iran, these two fronts are also being used as stepping stones to infiltrate the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasian Federal District in the Russian Federation too. Like Syria and Iraq, Ukraine is also being used as a stepping stone for modern conquest and to besiege Russia. he tells Mamon. [21] Russia and its allies will not be the only ones threatened. If the European Union thinks that it will be immune, it is wrong. Like Libya, a genie has been let out of the bottle with the spreading of weapons in Ukraine. In the long-term this will have an impact on the security of Europe and Eurasia. Just like the weapons being poured into Libya by NATO and the weapons taken from the Libyan military depots found their way into Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, the weapons in Ukraine will find their way to other places, particularly in Europe and the post-Soviet space. Marcin Mamon gives an account about this through a conversation he had with a commander that recently arrived from Syria. “‘It doesn’t matter whether the Ukrainian authorities help us or not,’ a commander from the Tatar battalion told me,” Mamon recalls. [24] Now that the militias have weapons they will never give them up to the Ukrainian government the commander who arrived from Syria told Mamon while explaining that his goal was to launch an insurgency in Crimea against Russia. [25] It should not come as a surprise that as recently as April 2015 the Kremlin revealed that it caught the US trying to tear Russia apart by directly supporting terrorism against Russia and the separatist insurgency in the North Caucasus. Putin lets it be known that when he frankly told US President George W. Bush about the US support for the destabilization of his country that Bush promised to halt it, but that Russia got an exceptionalist and utterly hypocritical letter from the US later that proclaimed that Washington could do was it pleases by sponsoring separatists and terrorists against Russia. These US actions are clearly part of a pattern and a continuum. In Kosovo Washington has done the same against the Serbs. In Sistan-Baluchistan it has acted in the same way against the Iranians. In Tibet and Xinjiang it has done the same against China. Now Ukraine is added to the fold. Make no mistake about it: the neo-Nazis, Washington, Wall Street, NATO, Al-Qaeda, Israel, and the Arab dictatorships, and the ISIS/ISIL/IS/DAISH/DAESH are all in it together. NOTES [1] Marcin Mamon, “In Midst of War, Ukraine Becomes Gateway for Jihad,” Intercept, February 26, 2015. [2-3] Marcin Mamon, “Isa Munayev’s War: The Final Days of a Chechen Commander Fighting in Ukraine,” Intercept, February 27, 2015. [4] Marcin Mamon, “In Midst of War,” op. cit. [5-11] Marcin Mamon, “Isa Munayev’s War,” op. cit. [12] Marcin Mamon, “In Midst of War,” op. cit. [13] Marcin Mamon, “Isa Munayev’s War,” op. cit. [14-19] Marcin Mamon, “In Midst of War,” op. cit. [20-21] Marcin Mamon, “Isa Munayev’s War,” op. cit. [22-23] Marcin Mamon, “In Midst of War,” op. cit. [24-25] Marcin Mamon, “Isa Munayev’s War,” op. cit. [printfriendly] What is $5 a month to support one of the greatest publications on the Left?