Ingush Jamaat

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Ingush Jamaat
Active	2000-Present
Allegiance	Caucasian Front
Type	Infantry
Engagements	Second Chechen War
Commanders
Commanders	Ilias Gorchkhanov † Akhmed Yevloyev

Ingush Jamaat, officially the Ingush sector of the Caucasian Front, is a militant Islamist organization connected to numerous attacks against the local and federal security forces in Russian region of Ingushetia and Chechnya in the North Caucasus. It's part of the Caucasian Front of the Second Chechen War. The Jamaat is thought to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of policemen, military personnel and officials.

1 History
2 Notable Events
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

The origins of the Ingush Jamaat can be found during the First Chechen War. The Ingush are closely related to the Chechens. Both peoples are part of the Vainakh tribes, speak Nakh languages and share a common culture. Many of the Ingush lived in Grozny during the outbreak of the war and fought along with the Chechens, but did not have enough time to create their own separate unit as they were scattered among various Chechen units under the command of Ruslan Gelayev and Shamil Basayev. These Ingush played a large role in the 1996 siege of Grozny. It took Russian forces over 15 months to capture Bamut, a small village southwest of the capital Grozny bordering Ingushetia, because help from Ingushetia arrived almost every day. Many think that it was thanks to the moderate Ruslan Aushev, then president of Ingushetia who opposed Russia's military campaign, that the conflict did not spread to Ingushetia.^[1]

After the Second Chechen War broke out many of the Ingush fighters (that had moved to Ingushetia but still felt closely related to their destroyed home-city Grozny), started rebuilding their military units. They became loyal to Aslan Maskhadov and Basayev. The units reportedly took heavy losses during the retreat through the mine-fields of the Battle of Grozny (1999–2000). It took a lot of time to reform the units and in 2000-2001 the jamaat was reformed along territorial lines in Ingushetia proper, with many units tied to a single city or area. Following the changes in the organisation, all Ingush units started working under the unified jamaat Shariat (not to be confused with Dagestan's Shariat Jamaat). In 2004 the Jamaat was renamed to Shariat Special Operations group in accordance with the wishes of Aslan Maskhadov. Later this changed to Ingush sector of the South-Western front and finally, when Abdul-Halim Sadulayev created the Caucasian Front Sadulayev referred to it as the Ingush sector of the Caucasus Front. Despite its many name changes it's mostly referred to simply as the Ingush Jamaat.^[2]^[3]