Yarmuk Jamaat

Yarmuk Jamaat (Джамаат Ярмук; officially Armed Forces of the United Vilayat (Province) of Kabarda-Balkaria-Karachai (KBK)) is a militant Islamist jamaat organization connected to numerous attacks against the local and federal security forces in Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus. Yarmuk became part of the Caucasian Front in 2005 and joined the Caucasus Emirate in 2007.

The group drew most of its early members from the Balkars, a small ethnic minority in the republic. However, their long-time leader between 2005 and 2010, Anzor Astemirov (Emir Sayfullah), was a Kabardin. Members come from other ethnic groups, including the Karachays and ethnic Russians. The group was named after the 7th-century Battle of Yarmouk.

Origins
The group began as a moderate non-violent organization named the Islamic Center in 1993. The group was renamed the Jamaat of Kabardino-Balkaria when it has been not allowed to re-register under the original name in 1997. The focus of the group gradually changed because of persecution by Valery Kokov, the long-time ruler of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, who labeled all alternatives to the local branch of the Spiritual Board of Russia's Muslims, operating the only official mosque in the republic, as Wahhabis, and indiscriminately and brutally harassed them.

Yarmuk was originally founded as a unit of around 30 Balkars and Kabardinians led by Muslim Atayev (Emir Sayfullah), which trained at the Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev's camp in Pankisi Gorge, Georgia. In 2002 the group helped Gelayev's forces in a raid of the village of Galashki in the Republic of Ingushetia. Upon their return to Kabardino-Balkaria, Atayev and his men launched a recruitment drive among alienated and radicalized youth. Mounting pressure from a continued crackdown forced the group's leader, Mussa Mukozhoyev (Musa Mukozhev), to join the underground. Many local young radicals joined the Islamic Peacekeeping Army that invaded the republic of Dagestan from Chechnya in 1999 or to fight on the Chechen separatist side in the Second Chechen War.

Radical Chechen commander Shamil Basayev maintained close ties with the local Wahhabis, living in the town of Baksan for more than a month in 2003, before narrowly escaping a police raid. An Ingush would-be suicide bomber, Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, lived in the republic's capital of Nalchik before going on a failed suicide mission to Moscow. A Nalchik resident housed the alleged organizer of the August 2004 bombing in the Moscow metro.

Early militant activities
In August 2004 Yarmuk announced the beginning of military operations in the republic. Their online manifesto rejected terrorism, referring to alleged government responsibility for the 1999 Russian apartment bombings ("We are not fighting against women or children, like Russian invaders are doing in Ichkeria. We are not blowing up sleeping people, like FSB of the Russian Federation does"). The manifesto noted the corruption of the "mafia clans" that led the republic ("These mere apologies for rulers, who sold themselves to the invaders, have made drug addiction, prostitution, poverty, crime, depravity, drunkenness and unemployment prosper in our Republic").

Yarmuk launched its first attack in Kabardino-Balkaria that same month, ambushing policemen in Chegem district. A turning point came in December 2004, when Yarmuk members conducted a raid on the office of the federal drug control agency in Nalchik, during which they seized large quantities of weapons and ammunition. The founding leader of Yarmuk, Muslim Atayev, was killed when the police stormed an apartment in Nalchik in January 2005. The organization continued to operate, staging attacks under the leadership of his successor, Rustam Bekanov. He was killed three months later and was replaced by Anzor Astemirov, a former deputy director of the Islamic Center. The group's base of operations was Nalchik and the Balkarian enclave around Mount Elbrus.

Nalchik raid
Yarmuk was the main force involved in the botched 2005 Nalchik raid by around 100–200 mostly untrained militants on the capital Nalchik, during which more than 140 people, including 95 alleged insurgents, were killed in 2005. Scores of suspects were detained after the attack, and at least 52 were put on trial. The Jamaat apparently lost most of its members, including the deputy leader Ilyas Gorchkhanov. Survivors retrenched, and in late 2007 were subsumed into a larger fighting unit that would operate not only in Kabardino-Balkaria but also in the neighboring republic of Karachay–Cherkessia after the destruction of its native Karachay Jamaat. The number of attacks attributed to Yarmuk at that time has been relatively low, compromised mostly of targeted assassinations such as that of Anatoly Kyarov. One exception was the shooting of a group of nine Russian hunters in November 2007. The militants systematically kept recruiting new fighters and gathering weapons.

Increased Activity
Following the death of Astemirov in March 2010, the leadership was assumed by far more aggressive young commanders like the Baksan area-based Emir Abdullah (Asker Dzhappuyev) and the south-west sector commander Emir Zakaria (Ratmir Shameyev), who then apparently regrouped Yarmuk and changed its tactics. The group went on to perpetrate two high-profile bombings: a blast at the Nalchik hippodrome that injured two ministers during May Day festivities and a sabotage attack in the Baksan hydroelectric power station that inflicted significant economic damage in July. The group was also involved in a large number of near-daily attacks directed against members of security forces. According the Russian federal Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev in November 2010, "the highest level of the terrorist threat in the North Caucasus is in the republics of Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria", as the KBR saw six times more gun attacks and nearly five times more explosions in 2010 as in the same period of 2009. The Yarmuk fighters began to simultaneously act as a Taliban-style morality police, targeting alleged "dens of vice".

Heavy Losses
Between March and May 2011, a number of actions by the Russian Security Services wiped out nearly the entire leadership of the Jamaat, including overall Emir Asker Dzhappuyev, Emir Zakaria of the southwestern sector and Emir Abdul Jabbar of the Northeastern Sector.

The death of so many commanders led to a lower number of rebel attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria for the rest of 2011. In September 2011 Alim Zankishiev (aka Emir Ubaidallah) became the new leader of the rebels, he was killed by Russian security forces in March 2012. A security operation in Nalchik in September 2012 again saw the killing of several senior commanders (Emir Hamza of the North-Western sector, Emir Abdal-Malik of the North-Eastern sector and Shamil Ulbashev, Emir of the Central Sector) in a single operation.