For the West to treat jihadists in the Russian North Caucasus as a local problem is to ignore the fact that they are part of the global terrorist network.
The problem of radical Islam in Azerbaijan is hardly new or unique for the Caucasus, even if much of the international media has refused to cover it. Its origins go back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when the young, independent Azeri state, under nationalist President Abulfaz Elchibey, indirectly supported Chechen rebels. Elchibey also allegedly invited the Muslim guerilla fighter Amir Khattab to the former Soviet Union in 1992, to help Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia. This lone anecdote proves that this problem cannot be taken out of the larger context of the growth of radical Islam in the Caucasus; after becoming acquainted with Shamil Basayev in Nagorno-Karabakh, Khattab moved his operation to Chechnya just as international terrorism chose this area as a battleground for a war with Russia.
It would be wrong to think that this war zone has no impact on the West, or at least Western spheres of interest. For example, Chechen jihadists have already turned up in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere fighting Western forces, and a Chechen cell has been tried in France for plotting terrorist attacks. Contrary to what many analysts have led Western decision makers to believe, al-Qaida has had Russia and the rest of the West in its crosshairs. Osama Bin Laden's first deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri targeted Russia for jihad over a decade ago, and Mohamed Atta was on his way to Chechnya before he was redirected to the United States to plan the Sept. 11 attacks.
