New statement from the Kavkaz-Jihād Blog: "One Year of Work"

In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. Peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, his compagnons and those who followed him until the Day of Jugement. Dear brothers and sisters in Islam, this day marks the first year of activity of our blog dedicated to the struggle of Caucasian Muslims for Islam and Freedom. By the grace of Allah (swt) we have been able to increase our activity thanks to our contributors, may Allah (swt) reward them. We saw with satisfaction our work being quoted, reposted and translated in other languages. Be assured that we do our best to increase the quality of our work and we ask Allah (swt) to assist us in this task. The number of our readers is slowly but steadily growing, however, and with honesty, it remains fairly low. But it is not that important. We are realistic, we understand that simple words only can hardly improve the situation or even raise awareness about it. However we hope that, Insha’Allah, our modest contribution helped some people, Muslims or not, to partly understand the nature of the war in the North Caucasus. Or at least, that it helped people to remember this small piece of earth and the blood being shed on it on daily basis… If Allah (swt) allows it, we plan to expand our activities in the comming year. But this cannot be made without help. So currently, we are especially looking for translators from Chechen to English and from Russian to English. If you are interrested you can contact us at kavkaz.jihad(at)gmail.com. On the other hand, we are open to critics and suggestions to improve the quality of our work. We invite you not only to read but to share your opinions by commenting or by participating in the polls (check on the right of this page). We Insha’Allah, will continue to work for the benefit of our readers as long as Allah (swt) allows us to do so. In the end, we ask Allah (swt) to accept our efforts and our work on His path and we ask Him forgiveness for our mistakes. The Kavkaz-Jihad English blog staff.

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Check out my new article for the Central Asia Caucasus Institute Analyst: "The Reunification of the Caucasus Emirate"

NOTE: I wrote this about a month ago and it was finally published on Monday so it is kind of dated, but is a good summary. It follows up on my piece about the fitnah that surrounded the Caucasus Emirate in the second half 2010 and first half of 2011 that I wrote about for the Atlantic, which you can read here. Below is the opening paragraph of my new piece for the Central Asia Caucasus Institute Analyst.

In late July 2011, the Caucasus Emirate’s official media mouthpiece Kavkaz Center announced that the two rival factions within the emirate had reconciled their differences through a Shari’ah court. Aslambek Vadalov and Khusayn Gakayev, as well as other commanders who previously rescinded their bay’at to Doku Umarov, renewed their allegiance. This episode provides further evidence of the decline of Arab fighter influence in the Caucasus jihad, yet paradoxically shows the impact of popular Arab online jihadi shaykhs. It also solidifies Umarov’s pan-Caucasus project as the leading resistance to Russian aggression in contrast to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’s claims as the true representatives of the more nationalist-Islamist Chechen struggle.
Read the rest here.