By Emil Souleimanov (12/12/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

As the civil war in Syria rages on, members of non-Arab minorities of this Middle Eastern country, notably Armenians, Kurds, Druze, and Circassians feel themselves increasingly caught in the crossfire and forced to take sides. Seeking to escape the bloody armed conflict between the supporters of the Assad regime and various factions of the anti-Assad opposition, Armenians have moved in relatively large numbers to their historical homeland, whereas Circassians have experienced problems in their efforts to repatriate to their native areas of the North Caucasus.

BACKGROUND: The Circassian – or Adyghe as Circassian peoples call themselves – Diaspora in what is now the Syrian Arab Republic was largely established in the second half of the 19th century.

By Jacob Zenn (12/12/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On December 5, the Government of Kazakhstan admitted publicly for the first time that Jund al-Khilafah (JaK) posed a threat to national security. The statement was issued by the National Security Committee’s Deputy Chairman, Kabdulkarim Abdikazymov, who said that JaK was composed largely of Kazakh nationals and was based in the Afghan-Pakistan border region. JaK cells are also believed to operate in the North Caucasus.

By Tomáš Šmíd (9/19/2012 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On August 1, 2012, Chechnya’s President Ramzan Kadyrov announced that troops of the Chechen MVD and the Chechen administrative FSB had carried out a special operation in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia on July 29. Chechen troops killed two and wounded one member of the North Caucasian insurgency, suspected of conducting an attack on Tsentoroy, the center of the Kadyrov clan. Ingush president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov dismissed Kadyrov’s version and proclaimed that the casualties were caused by an accidental explosion in the village of Galashki near Chechnya’s border, in effect accusing Kadyrov of lying and exacerbating the already severe animosity between the two leaders.