SPECIAL ANALYSIS: For those of you just joining us ...

I sincerely hope that readers are enjoying reading these special analyses at least as much as I do writing them. In the interest of getting everyone "caught up" on current events in the War on Terror from December 17, this analysis will deal with some of the under-reported aspects of the conflict over the course of the holiday season.

In particular, this analysis will cover recent events in Dagestan, Thailand, Nigeria, and Iraq that have been largely ignored by Western media outlets.

DAGESTAN

Dagestan (sometimes spelled Daghestan) is a Russian republic adjacent to Chechnya with a population that is predominantly made up of Sufi Muslims. They were invaded by the late Chechnya-based Arab warlord Amir ibn al-Khattab and his International Islamic Peacekeeping Brigade in 1999 in an effort to incorporate the republic into a Pan-Islamic theocracy spanning across the Caucasus, as explained by Chechen jamaat commander Amir Ramzan in this interview published on the pro-separatist Kavkaz Center website. Khattab's invasion, combined with the bombings in Moscow that killed roughly 300, led to the current Russian occupation of Chechnya.

As most readers are no doubt aware of, distinguishing between the Chechen Islamists led by Shamil Basayev (who is himself an alumni of one of bin Laden's Afghan camps) and the larger al-Qaeda network is at best a matter of semantics, though I should add a brief caveat that it is not my intention to justify Russian policies with regard to Chechnya so much as to explain just who it is that is fighting them there and who they are ultimately loyal to.

That being said, on December 15, a large group of Chechen fighters crossed into Dagestan, seizing hostages from Shauri and Galatli before breaking into 3 groups and heading back towards Chechnya and Georgia. This led to several encounters with Russian forces before the operation was completed and it was learned that a number of "Arab mercenaries" (a term used by the Russian press to describe jihadis) were among the dead. Other accounts suggest that the Arab leaders fled into Georgia and left their Chechen allies to die at Russian hands and it is entirely possible that just the upper-tier Arab commanders fled, leaving all of the cannon fodder to die regardless of their ethnic backgrounds.

Whatever the case, these events appear to have led to the capture of a Chechen rebel archive that may well prove to be an intelligence goldmine as well as forcing Russia to consolidate its stance in the South Caucasus. There are also unconfirmed reports that senior Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev (Gelaev) is among the dead. I would note that any Chechen warlords have had this nasty habit of coming back from that condition in the past, this would be exceedingly good news if true.

THAILAND

While there have been past reports of al-Qaeda operating in southern Thailand under the auspices of JI, up until recently there has been very little proof of actual Islamic extremism in the country.

That all changed on January 4, when 30 attackers burnt down 21 schools, killed 4 soldiers, and raided an army depot in the southern provinces of Narathiwat and Yala, the former of which was placed under martial law soon afterwards. Since then, there has been further violence in Pattani and Yala, including one attack that killed 2 soldiers.

According to Thai security adviser General Kitti Rattanachaya, these attacks are being carried out by well-trained separatists linked to JI who could be getting support from the KMM.

This is significant because there have been a number of press reports labeling the KMM as the political wing of the Parti Islam Se Malaysia (PAS), which is run by Nik Aziz Nik Mat, the father of alleged KMM leader Nik Adli Nik Aziz and we could be seeing the beginnings of a push by JI and KMM to try to create a "greater caliphate" in continental Southeast Asia by incorporating southern Thailand into Malaysia.

NIGERIA

Northern Nigeria has recently been identified as a hotbed of Islamic extremism fueled by an aggressive Wahhabi missionary campaign into West Africa and repeated outbreaks of inter-religious violence in the country. However, in recent days a specific organization has appeared with the apparent intention of challenging the Nigerian government for rule in at least one northern province: al-Sunnah wal Jamaa, also known as Hijrah, possibly a reference to Takfir wal Hijrah ("Anathema and Exile"), a militant Islamic movement that once tried to assassinate bin Laden for impiety. Rantburger Paul Moloney also speculates that they may be connected with an Australian organization of the same name led by a Sheikh Omran and perhaps connected to Zarqawi's al-Tawhid organization, which is in of itself a segment of the larger al-Qaeda network.

The organization first came to public light on December 31, when Nigeria deployed riot police across Yobe state after over 200 members of the group attacked police stations in the state capital of Damaturu after arriving from neighboring Borno state 4 months earlier.

After three days of clashes across 3 towns that left 8 dead, Nigeria announced that the group had been suppressed, arresting 7 and deploying 500 troops to hunt down any survivors. I'm not sure what happened during the course of the deployment, but by the end of it all Governor Bukar Ibrahim had announced that "many" Taliban-oriented radicals had been killed.

According to AllAfrica, Hijrah is made up largely of highly-educated graduates who sought to establish an Islamic theocracy in Kanamma, Yunusari, and Toshiya, which would then be placed under the rule of unemployed potenate Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

This sounds like quite an odd agenda even by Islamic extremist standards, but one might want to remember that Nigeria as well as several other nations have recently been singled out by both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri as being "ripe for liberation," which may explain why the Nigerian authorities are probing the uprising for foreign backing - don't be too surprised if the money trail leads all the way back to Riyadh before all of this is said and done.

IRAQ

As Joe noted on January 2, the immediate effect of the capture of Saddam Hussein has been to splinter the Baathist leadership into 3 factions, only two of which I would say are likely to be a genuine threat to coalition forces in the country.

The first and largest of these forces is said to be led by one Colonel Hani Abdul Latif al-Tilfah al-Tikrit and to be comprised of former members of the Special Security Organization, the presidential guard, and special commando units. If Colonel Hani does indeed retain the allegiance of the al-Tikriti tribe, that means that he likely has a lock on whatever remains of the Baathist slush fund, given that 5 families within the immediate area of Tikrit were largely responsible for financing the Baathist insurgents against US forces.

The most interesting character in Colonel Hani's rogues' gallery, however, is Lieutenant General Tahir Dalil Habbush, whom Taheri informs us is a Soviet-trained intelligence expert. Habbush has this penchant for being somewhat akin to a bad penny given that he keeps turning up, whether it's being involved in backdoor negotiations, the alleged intelligence memo regarding Mohammed Atta which Isikoff and Hosenball believe is forged (see here for my own thoughts), as well as in this story in the Christian Science Monitor in 1999 ordering the destruction of VX.

The second major group is led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who was previously believed to be the main driver behind the Baathist insurgency as well as having forged an alliance with Ansar al-Islam. However, al-Douri himself seems to be ill and little more than a figurehead for Major General Seyfallah Hassan Taha al-Rawi, which may explain the confusion among some Iraqi bloggers as whether or not he would be able to orchestrate such a massive campaign while in such fragile health. The Syrian border connection probably means that they have either some kind of incestuous fraternal ties with their ideological bretheren in Damascus or are else running the underground railroad for foreign fighters together with the Iran-based Ansar al-Islam. Al-Douri seems to have the support of the former Saddam Fedayeen and other non-Tikriti Baathists.

The third group, led by Muhsin Khudhair al-Kafji appears to be made up largely of "true believers" among the old Baathist ideologues as well as the civilian elements of the old regime, relying on what appear to be largely sympathetic tribes and Palestinian terrorists for muscle, the latter of which I interpret as being whatever is left of the Palestine Liberation Front and the Abu Nidal Organization. While I very much doubt that al-Kafji's faction has the necessary forces to inflict any kind of damage against coalition forces (as opposed to those led by Colonel Hani and al-Douri), they actually probably have the most realistic goal in their desire to "patch up relations with" (read: ingratiate themselves to) their Syrian counterparts and live out the rest of their lives in Syria rather than go before a war crimes tribunal and spend their days in prison.