Jun 24, 2014

The exceedingly small number of foreign heads of state who have visited Grozny, the capital city of Russia’s Chechen Republic, increased by one last week when Jordan’s King Abdullah II met there with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Though neither side offered any real detail on their discussions, the central topic may have been a profound one for the Middle East.

Abdullah’s trip was at Kadyrov’s invitation, after a senior aide visited Jordan in 2013. According to Chechnya’s regional government, tens of thousands of Chechens live in Jordan, in itself an important topic for the leader of this relatively small ethnic group. Kadyrov himself traveled to Amman earlier this year to meet the king and possibly reinforce his invitation.

However, taking into account that it is quite unusual for a foreign head of state to meet with a Russian republic leader twice in six months — and for a foreign head of state to come to a regional capital for a meeting like that without also seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow or elsewhere (in fact, Putin’s official schedule put him in Stavropol, which is adjacent to Chechnya, the day before Abdullah’s visit) — they probably have something more substantial to discuss. That the two men should appear together at anti-terrorist exercises for Chechnya’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs troops hints at their agenda.

Hardened veterans of Chechnya’s two unsuccessful wars for independence from post-Soviet Russia have become a significant component within the groups of international extremist Islamist fighters ranging across the Middle East and South Asia. According to news reports, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria may include between 1,000 and 2,000 Chechen fighters. With ISIS now consolidating its position in western Iraq and seeking control over the Syria-Iraq border, Abdullah and his government would be appropriately concerned about their country’s northern and eastern borders and the extent to which Chechens already in Jordan might make common cause with ISIS militants outside it.

Kadyrov could be a key ally for Jordan in understanding and managing this challenge. His father, Akhmad Kadyrov, became the appointed leader of the Chechen Republic (in 2000) and later Chechnya’s elected president (in 2003) after changing sides in the second Chechen war and working with Putin to stabilize the region. A few years after his father was assassinated by extremist forces, Ramzan Kadyrov consolidated power as Chechnya’s new leader. The US Department of State has described his rule since then as "corrupt and brutal" and Western human rights organizations frequently condemn his government’s conduct. A Russian business newspaper once used photographs of his wristwatch to assess its value at $300,000.