Dagestan blamed Islamic extremists for the murder of a rabbi in Derbent on July 25; authorities also found 100 pounds of explosives belonging to extremists. A Caucasus Emirate fighter in Syria appealed to jihadists to stay in Russia to fight. Dagestani authorities claimed that 200 Dagestani fighters have gone to Syria; Russian authorities said 100 Chechens have gone to Syria to fight. Ingushetia head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov claimed that there are no more than 20 Islamist insurgents left in Ingushetia, with no new recruits in two years. The new commander of the Ingush wing of the insurgency recently offered qualified support for a popular imam in Nazran. The trial of an alleged Chechen insurgency ‘mole’ began in Vedeno.
