The Tajik Civil War and Russia’s Islamist moment

Published online: 10 November 2022Contra the often-held assumption that the Islamist danger has been at the forefront of Moscow’s security agenda since the Soviet–Afghan War, this article shows how different Russian decision-makers held different views of Islamism during the Tajik Civil War (1992–97). It argues that different relations to the Soviet past, especially to the Soviet–Afghan War, explain the differences in assessing Islamism in Tajikistan between the security agencies and political elites. Unlike the reformers in the Kremlin, the legacy Soviet security elites and diplomats in Russia and the neo-communist leaders in Central Asia recalled the Islamist danger from Soviet times. They emphasized it to the Kremlin who came to embrace their view as the Tajik Civil War progressed and tensions rose in Chechnya

In search of Islamic legitimacy : the USSR, the Afghan communists and the Muslim world

Published online: 02 October 2022During the Afghan War, the Mujahideen claimed that the Afghan communists were atheists who were subservient to Moscow and did not have the legitimacy to rule Afghanistan. The war became a contest for legitimacy in Afghanistan and internationally. The Soviets and the Afghan communists portrayed communist Afghanistan as Islamic and therefore legitimate in the international arena. The Soviets elaborated an information campaign emphasising Islam and strengthened Afghanistan’s contacts with Muslim countries to show that the Afghan communists were Muslims too. They hoped international recognition would reduce Muslim countries’ support to the Mujahideen and improve the Afghan communists’ acceptance at home

“Communist Muslims” : The USSR and the people's democratic party of Afghanistan's conversion to Islam, 1978–1988

Soviet leaders sent troops into Afghanistan in December 1979 to support a friendly Marxist-Leninist regime in its conflict against a popular insurgency and help it build a new society. When the Soviet troops withdrew nine years later, they left behind a state that had none of the nominal characteristics of a Soviet-type Communist country. During the war, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan had discarded Marxism-Leninism and turned to Islam. This article examines how, with Moscow's support, the Afghan Communists Islamicized their discourse and policies as they tried to gain support from the population and co-opt insurgent fighters

Bringing the war home : the strategic logic of ‘North Caucasian terrorism’ in Russia

Published online: 03 July 2020Terrorism connected to the North Caucasus has been pervasive in Russia between 1992 and 2018. Based on an original dataset, this article presents statistics on rates of terrorist attacks outside of the North Caucasus, their geography and targets, and the tactics used. It argues that terrorism by North Caucasian insurgents has long retained a strategic logic despite their conversion to radical Islamism. Accordingly, the end of North Caucasian terrorism was determined by the erosion of its strategic character as an increasingly vague ideological project replaced concrete political goals among the insurgents

Plasmon channels in the electronic relaxation of diamond under high-order harmonics femtosecond irradiation

We used high order harmonics of a femtosecond titanium-doped sapphire system (pulse duration 25 fs) to realise Ultraviolet Photoelectron Spectroscopy (UPS) measurements on diamond. The UPS spectra were measured for harmonics in the range 13 to 27. We also made ab initio calculations of the electronic lifetime of conduction electrons in the energy range produced in the UPS experiment. Such calculations show that the lifetime suddenly diminishes when the conduction electron energy reaches the plasmon energy, whereas the UPS spectra show evidence in this range of a strong relaxation mechanism with an increased production of low energy secondary electrons. We propose that in this case the electronic relaxation proceeds in two steps : excitation of a plasmon by the high energy electron, the latter decaying into individual electron-hole pairs, as in the case of metals. This process is observed for the first time in an insulator and, on account of its high efficiency, should be introduced in the models of laser breakdown under high intensity

The allure of Jihad : the de-territorialization of the war in the North Caucasus

Published online: 22 October 2020Insurgents in the North Caucasus switched from the al-Qaedaaffiliated Imarat Kavkaz to the Islamic State after 2014. Although this transition was partially the result of Imarat Kavkaz’s military defeat, it has also settled two decades of tension over ideology. It signalled the victory of Salafi-jihadism over a nationally rooted (radical) Islamism and led to a break between the insurgents and the Caucasian context. This de-territorialization of grievances for the war has in turn increased the threat of radical Islamist violence for Russia

Building analytical platform with Big Data solutions for log files of PanDA infrastructure

The paper describes the implementation of a high-performance system for the processing and analysis of log files for the PanDA infrastructure of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), responsible for the workload management of order of 2M daily jobs across the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. The solution is based on the ELK technology stack, which includes several components: Filebeat, Logstash, ElasticSearch (ES), and Kibana. Filebeat is used to collect data from logs. Logstash processes data and export to Elasticsearch. ES are responsible for centralized data storage. Accumulated data in ES can be viewed using a special software Kibana. These components were integrated with the PanDA infrastructure and replaced previous log processing systems for increased scalability and usability. The authors will describe all the components and their configuration tuning for the current tasks, the scale of the actual system and give several real-life examples of how this centralized log processing and storage service is used to showcase the advantages for daily operations

Acute phlegmonous appendicitis in rare variant of appendix diverticulum (case report)

Background. Appendicitis-like diverticulitis is considered a rare disease and is usually the subject of clinical reports. Clinical manifestations of this pathology is similar to those of appendicitis, which is why a preoperative diagnosis is made quite rarely. When carrying out the study, we considered a clinical case of acute phlegmonous appendicitis with a rare variant of the appendix wall diverticulum.Material and methods. To assess clinical cases, a retrospective analysis of medical documentation (medical records of patients with diverticulitis in particular) was used. The assessment of clinical symptoms was accompanied by using general clinical, histological and microbiological methods.Results. Patient I., 62 years old, was diagnosed with acute appendicitis. An urgent appendectomy was carried out, during which the vermiform process was removed. It was located retrocecally, in the adhesive process and loose infiltrate. The length of the process is 7–8 cm, its diameter is 1–1,5 cm. 6 diverticula up to 0,7 cm in size are visible. When the process is cut, the pyoid contents protrudes from its lumen. In addition, the appendix removed during appendectomy was sent for pathological study. A standard histopathological study was carried out with the step-like sectioning and hematoxylin and eosin staining.Conclusion. From the results of a pathological study, it was found that the layers of the vermiform process wall with diverticula are diffusely infiltrated by polymorphonuclear leukocytes. The mucous membrane is anesthetized and had ulcerative defects. The patient was diagnosed with phlegmonous appendicitis, periappendicitis, diverticulitis.Vermiform process diverticulitis is not a common pathology, however a timely diagnosis can cause quite severe complications

Transition metal dichalcogenide nanospheres for high-refractive-index nanophotonics and biomedical theranostics

Recent developments in the area of resonant dielectric nanostructures have created attractive opportunities for concentrating and manipulating light at the nanoscale and the establishment of the new exciting field of all-dielectric nanophotonics. Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) with nanopatterned surfaces are especially promising for these tasks. Still, the fabrication of these structures requires sophisticated lithographic processes, drastically complicating application prospects. To bridge this gap and broaden the application scope of TMDC nanomaterials, we report here femtosecond laser-ablative fabrication of water-dispersed spherical TMDC (MoS2 and WS2) nanoparticles (NPs) of variable size (5 to 250 nm). Such NPs demonstrate exciting optical and electronic properties inherited from TMDC crystals, due to preserved crystalline structure, which offers a unique combination of pronounced excitonic response and high refractive index value, making possible a strong concentration of electromagnetic field in the NPs. Furthermore, such NPs offer additional tunability due to hybridization between the Mie and excitonic resonances. Such properties bring to life a number of nontrivial effects, including enhanced photoabsorption and photothermal conversion. As an illustration, we demonstrate that the NPs exhibit a very strong photothermal response, much exceeding that of conventional dielectric nanoresonators based on Si. Being in a mobile colloidal state and exhibiting superior optical properties compared to other dielectric resonant structures, the synthesized TMDC NPs offer opportunities for the development of next-generation nanophotonic and nanotheranostic platforms, including photothermal therapy and multimodal bioimaging