Fatwa Now Encourages Chechens to Fight for Jihad with US-Backed Rebels in Syria

Photo Credit: WNDThe head of the self-styled Caucasus Emirates has reversed his position and now will back Chechens fighting for “jihad” in Syria, so they can bring back their experiences to more effectively take on the Russian security services in their quest to set up an independent Islamic state subject to Shariah law, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Doku Umarov, who leads the Caucasus Emirates, which the Islamist militants want to establish in existing southern Russian provinces, initially was opposed to Chechens leaving the area to fight in Syria.

He even tried to encourage Chechens who had been living in other countries and going to fight in Syria to instead return to the Russian province of Chechnya to fight.

Umarov was in part persuaded by a fatwa issued by a local sheikh, Abu Abdurrakhman al-Magribiy, who backed Umarov’s position that Chechens and other North Caucasians should fight at home and not in Syria.

However, a second part of that fatwa said that the North Caucasians could engage in the civil war in Syria if their goal was to obtain the combat experience needed to return home and use it against the Russians.

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