Shanghai Cooperation Organization Set to Expand
By John C.K. Daly (08/14/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) currently consists of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At an August 1 meeting in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, foreign ministers from the six member states reached consensus on legal documents providing for expanding the SCO to include four current SCO observer states, India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia, passing two draft documents on expansion for approval at the SCO summit to be held in Dushanbe September 11-12. If passed, it will be the largest expansion of the SCO since its founding.
Moscow and the Crimean Tatars: is Russia Inciting a New Jihadi Front?
By Stephen Blank (08/05/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
When Moscow invaded and annexed Crimea, it also reacquired control over the Crimean Tatar population there, approximately 300,000 people. Russia’s annexation is utterly at odds with the desires of the Crimean Tatars and their Majlis or Council. As the veteran Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev has said, they want only autonomy within Ukraine, an insight based on the clear recognition that only in a democratic Ukraine, especially in the light of planned reforms to decentralize Ukraine’s administration, can their demands be met. The record of the treatment of Tatars in Crimea after Russia’s annexation implies that Moscow risks inciting a new insurgency, possibly with Jihadist overtones.
Prospects for the Caucasus Emirate Under Kebedov's Leadership
By Emil Souleimanov (08/05/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In March 2014, jihadist websites confirmed the death of Doku Umarov, the founder in 2007 of the Caucasus Emirate, a virtual theocracy claiming the territories of Russia’s North Caucasus. Pro-Moscow Chechen authorities were quick to claim they had liquidated Umarov, considered by many as a personal foe of Ramzan Kadyrov, as a result of special operation. Yet the jihadist websites posit that Umarov died of natural causes a few months before the formal announcement of his death. Several months later, a new amir of the Caucasus Emirate, Aliaskhab Kebedov, an ethnic Avar from neighboring Dagestan going by the nomme de guerre Ali Abu Muhammad, was elected by the shura, i.e. Council, of the Emirate.
Ukraine and the Northern Distribution Network
By John Daly (08/05/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Two routes of the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), collectively known as the Northern Lines of Communication (NLOC) run through Russia, but deteriorating U.S.-Russian relations over Ukraine could complicate the continued usage of the NDN by U.S./NATO/ISAF forces. The NDN’s importance is well understood in both Washington and Moscow. The question is now, in an attempt to modify Russian behavior over Ukraine, whether a proposed third round of increased Western sanctions and intensified NATO activities around Russia’s periphery may cause the Russian government to deny ISAF and NATO further use of the NLOC segments of the NDN.
Visit also
