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Political flags in Chechenia (Russia)

Separatist non-national flags

Last modified: 2002-12-20 by antonio martins
Keywords: gray wolves | separatist | wolf | error | ikhda al-khusnayin |
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Saudi flags in Chechenia?

Photo from Russian newspaper Kommersant: A sergeant of Russian army with a flag of islamic extremists in Dagestan.
Nikolay Khimenkov, 15 Sep 1999

The flag seems to be held upside down. Otherwise it looks very much like the Saudi one.
Santiago Dotor, 15 Sep 1999

A few days ago, two Chechen leaders in Daghestan were interviewed in front of the flag in the Czech TV. The flag is swallowtailed, wery dark, probably black (or very dark green?), with white Arabic "Allah Aqbar" (probably ..., it seems like the inscritption in the Iraqi flag) and with white curved knife/sword below the inscription. Maybe, it is a flag of the "islamic republic of Daghestan".
Jan Zrzavy, 10 Sep 1999

I also saw this report (or a similar one) in German TV some weeks ago. As already pointed out by Jaume it is a flag used in the town (village?) Kharamakhi. In the report they only shown this flag inside the building; outside the building the rebels flew a correct Saudi Arabian flag.
Marcus Schmöger, 13 Sep 1999

A quotation related with the inscription in the flag used by the short lived Islamic Emirate of Chechnya and Dagestan (1999):

...« here is our flag, the flag of the Majlis of Muslims of Ichkeria and Dagestan. There is an inscription at the bottom — Ikhda al-Khusnayin. It is a verse from the Koran, which, translated literally, means one of the two goods, i.e., victory or paradise.
Jaume Ollé, 03 Aug 2000

NAZRAN, Southern Russia - [...] Police removed two black rebel flags hung overnight on buildings in the town of Shali in the southern foothills.
Jaume Ollé, 07 Apr 2001, quoting The Associated Press


Grey Wolves

On the TV news tonight (19/1/96) was some footage relating to the end of the hijacking of the Turkish Black Sea ferry by supporters of the Chechen separatists. One shot showed supporters of the hijackers on the shore. They were waving Chechen flags and also red flags which resembled the Turkish flag except that they had three stars (in a triangular pattern, I think) instead of one.
Stuart Notholt, 19 Jan 1996

I think there is (was?) a militant Turkish organization called The Gray Wolves with a nationalistic Moslem agenda. I’m not sure if they’re still active.
Greg Duda, 20 Jan 1996

The Chechenya mailing list had a post concerning a flag sent from Chechenya to some chechenyans in Jordon. It contained a gray wolf, said to be a symbol of Chechnians, whose national anthem refers to their birth with the birth of the wolves. The use of this new flag may be due to this symbolism or due to the fact that the previous one is too similar to that of many other groups using same pattern with different colors.
William Grimes-Wyatt, 22 Jan 1996

An article in NYTimes (Nov 1,96) concerning the situation in Chechnya states, «Officials in Moscow discuss the future of the region with great intensity, always saying that Chechnya must never be independent. But for the Chechens, that kind of talk means nothing any more: The traditional green Chechen flag of the lone wolf flies over every battle-scared town hall in the shattered republic.» Now, I have seen Chechen flags of green with the white-red-white stripes near the botom; and blue-disc with white outline, containing either and seated lamb and stars above it; the other version in the blue disc had an horizontally displayed infinity symbol of sorts, with stars above it. I also know of the lone wolf as used on Gaugauzia’s flag, although the colors there are light blue field with a white disc in the center and upon this disc a silhouette in yellow/green of a left-facing wolf’s head.
Steve Stringfellow, 01 Nov 1996

I believe that the symbol in the circle of Chechen flag is referred to as the grey (or white?) wolf, in any case a wolf, not a lamb nor anything else. If it is so, the description in the article might have been correct, assuming that journalist described only the most prominent elements of the flag (as someone told him, I guess) not a flag that he had seen. I would also read his sentence as ’the lone wolf flag’ being the name or nick name of the flag, or maybe describing just the most important (at the time) element of the flag, and assuming that other elements are well known.
Zeljko Heimer, 02 Nov 1996