"Chechen struggle - anti-colonial war"

A salient feature of politics in the Northern Caucasus has been the primacy of religious identification, coupled with a spirit of rebellion and a capacity for prolonged resistance against overwhelming odds. Throughout the decades, Islam has worked as a unifying force for the people of the Northern Caucasus in their struggle against Russian "infidel" influence.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the region has been characterized by an increase in religiosity and an upsurge in the prominence of more fundamentalist Islamism. Not only has the region witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of mosques since the 1980s, but interestingly, even in the last days of the former Soviet Union, Dagestan and Chechnya produced more pilgrims for the annual Hajj than the rest of the USSR combined. Current events in the region should therefore be viewed in the context of the centuries of heavy-handed and often genocidal Russian policies aimed at the subjugation of the Muslims of the Caucasus, and as the ultimate result of underlying tensions exacerbated by failed Russian socio-economic policies.

Full Article : kavkazcenter.com