Back to the MMA Newsfeed

From Wrestling Mats to Battlefields: The trend of Caucasus athletes turned Islamic insurgents

On Wednesday, September 28, former freestyle wrestler Chamsulvara Chamsulvarayev was killed by a U.S. drone strike in the Northern Iraqi region of Mosul. The Dagestani wrestler and naturalized Azerbaijani citizen had defected to the Islamic State (ISIS) and was operating as a key recruiter of Caucasus fighters for the insurgency. He specialized in recruiting young women to their cause. He is believed to have radicalized a pregnant teenager who blew herself up in front of the Istanbul tourism police station in 2015.

"His job in ISIS was hiring young girls and making them suicide bombers," reported a news site.