Imarat Kavkaz; IK; Имарат Кавказ
The IK was a jihadist organisation established in October 2007 by Dokka Umarov, the then-leader of the Chechen insurgency. It replaced the ChRI, the self-proclaimed state that had fought two wars with Russia. Unlike the ChRI, which was mostly a nationalist-separatist project, the IK sought to create an Islamic state governed by sharia law, encompassing the entirety of Russia’s North Caucasus region.
The IK carried out numerous insurgent and terrorist attacks, both in the North Caucasus and elsewhere in Russia, and it constituted the main domestic security threat facing the country until 2014. However, it never achieved its goal of establishing territorial control or building new state institutions. It ultimately collapsed under intense security service pressure and competition from jihadist insurgencies elsewhere.
To learn more, read The Caucasus Emirate (Imarat Kavkaz): An Explainer
