Sufi Imam murdered in Dagestan, the volatile republic of the Russian Caucasus
Moscow (AsiaNews / Agencies) - On the night of July 3rd unidentified men opened fire on the car of one of the moderate Muslim religious leaders in Dagestan, killing him. According to investigators, Sufi Imam Ilyas Ilyasov (76 years) was attacked by two men, who then fled. His driver was injured in the attack in Makhachkala. Ilyasov's death is being treated as manslaughter. The Sufi leader was known for its strongly critical positions towards the expansion of the radical current of Islam Salafism in Dagestan and throughout the North Caucasus.
Ilyasov's murder is just the latest in a series of attacks against the moderate religious leaders in this volatile republic in the Russian Caucasus. In July, a rabbi in Derbent was seriously injured in shooting attack. In March, an imam was killed in the village of Gubden. As of January 2012, 11 Muslim clerics have been killed.
Ilyasov had repeatedly denounced
the inadequacy of political power, terming it "one of the causes of
radicalization of the local population." Gregory
Shvedov - a Caucasus expert and director of the agency Caucasian Knot, which
monitors these types of attacks - has warned against simplistic readings of the
situation. As
he explained to the Moscow Times, you
can not narrow the cause of this series of murders only to the current clash
between moderate and radical Islam, the latter wanting to establish in the
Russian Caucasus - Muslim-majority territory - an independent Islamic state,
the so-called "caliphate in the Caucasus. "
"The
fact, for example, that the targets of this campaign are chosen very carefully
- he explained - forces me to be very careful in my analysis: we need to
understand if some people are using the religious aspect in Dagestan to achieve
their personal ends. "
Investigators
working on the case Ilyasov believe that the Imam's activities in the field of
religion is only one of the possible motives. Ilyasov
had already received threats in 2008, when he worked at a mosque in
Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan. (N.A.)
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