Due to centrifugal processes of late 1980s and early 1990s the Islamic movement in the Northern Caucasus turned out to be fragmented. That fact found its reflection not just in a new institutionalization of the official Islam but also in emergence of absolutely new actors in the Moslem field which hitherto had been single and unified. The author means numerous «Islamic» political parties and movements that vigorously employed the Islamic rhetoric and symbols in their activities. By mid-1990s these structures achieved the peak of their influence. Then they dwindled and nowadays they do not exert any serious impact on political processes in the region. However in the meantime (and not without influence from without) the Salafi grouping emerged and became the principal opponents of the conventional and official Islam. Events that took place in Chechnya in 1994−1996 paved the way for accelerated internationalization of the Salafi movement in the region. In 1996−1999 Chechen Republic was turned into the drill ground of the international terrorism which allowed the extremist movement which used Islam as a disguise to develop there. An exceptionally powerful force and administrative pressure was exerted on adherents of Salafism and that pressure was, for all practical purposes, indiscriminate. At the same time «anti-Wahhabi» laws were passed in many North Caucasian regions of Russia. That resulted in disappearance of moderate radicals' communities and strengthening of religious and political extremists' positions. Defeat of separatists in Chechnya, diffusion of the Salafi movement over other North Caucasian republics transformed «the resistance» partially into «guerilla way of life», partially into mobile, loosely interconnected terrorist groups. The extremist Jihad has spread out all over the region.