Shamil Basayev

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Shamil Basayev in Dagestan, 1999

Shamil Salmanovich Basayev (Russian: Шамиль Салманович Басаев) (January 14, 1965 – July 10, 2006) was a vice-president of the internationally unrecognized separatist government-in-exile of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Islamist guerrilla leader, and self-described terrorist. Beginning in 2003, Basayev also used the pseudonym and title Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris, Amir of the Brigade of Shahids 'Riyadus Salihiin'".

Shamil Basayev was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on civilians and guerrilla attacks on security forces in and around Russia, most notably for the Moscow theater siege and the Beslan school siegecondemned by most governments including Maskhadov's separatist government-in-exile, who denied responsibility and was considered by some as the undisputed leader of the radical wing of the Chechen insurgency against the presence of Russian federal security forces, and the rule of Kremlin-backed local government in Grozny, considered a foreign occupation by separatists.

Basayev's power only increased after the Russian assassination of the more moderate, nationalist Chechen guerrilla leader, president of the separatist government Aslan Maskhadov. Basayev was a recipient of the highest awards of the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria: "K'oman Siy" (honour of the nation) and "K'oman Turpal" (hero of the nation). He bore the title of Ichkerian Divisional General.

Early life

His family is said to have had a long history of involvement in Chechen resistance to Russian rule, and suffered reprisals in the process. His grandfather fought for the abortive attempt to create a breakaway North Caucasus Emirate after the Russian Revolution. The Basayevs, along with most of the rest of the Chechen population, were deported to Kazakhstan during World War II on the orders of Lavrenti Beria as a means of cutting off support to the insurgency and to prevent support of the Nazi invaders by Chechen population. They were only allowed to return when the deportation order was lifted by Khrushchev in 1957.

Basayev graduated from school Dyshne-Vedeno in 1982 and spent the next two years in the Soviet military serving as a firefighter. For the next four years, he worked at the Aksaiisky state farm in the Volgograd region of southern Russia before moving to Moscow. He attempted to enroll at the law faculty of the Moscow State University but failed, and instead entered the Moscow Engineering Institute of land management in 1987. However, he was expelled for poor grades in 1988. He subsequently worked as a computer salesman in Moscow, in partnership with a Chechen businessman named Supyan Taramov. Ironically, the two men ended up on opposite sides in the Chechen wars, during which Taramov sponsored a pro-Russian Chechen militia. In later interviews, Taramov would claim that he hired Basayev as a favor for a family friend, and that the latter was an ineffectual worker who would spend whole nights playing videogames, sleep in the day, and had an obsession with Che Guevara.

Basayev at war

A few months later in October 1991, the Chechen nationalist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev unilaterally declared independence from Russia. In response, Yeltsin announced a state of emergency and dispatched troops to the border of Chechnya. Dudaev's government claimed mobilizing 60,000 volunteers to defend against a possible Russian intervention. It was then that Basayev began his long and notorious career as an insurgent - seeking to draw international attention to the crisis. Shamil Basayev, Lom-Ali Chachayev, and the group's leader, Said-Ali Satuyev, a former airline pilot suffering from schizophrenia, hijacked an Aeroflot Tu-154 plane, en route from Mineralnye Vody in Russia to Ankara in Turkey on November 9, 1991, and threatened to blow up the airplane unless the state of emergency was lifted. The hijacking was resolved peacefully in Turkey, with the plane and passengers being allowed to return safely and the hijackers given safe passage back to Chechnya.

The following year, Basayev traveled to Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia, to assist the local separatist movement against the Georgian government's attempts to regain control of the region. Basayev became the commander-in-chief of the forces of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (a volunteer unit of pan-Caucasian nationalists, composed mainly of Chechens), and eventually the Abkhazia's deputy defence minister. Their involvement was crucial in the Abkhazian war and in October 1992 the Georgian government suffered a decisive military defeat, after which the entire ethnic Georgian population of the region was driven out in a large-scale outbreak of ethnic cleansing. Basayev's unit was alleged to have killed thousands of Georgian civilians in Sukhumi and the village Leselidze. It was rumored that the volunteers were trained and supplied by some part of the Russian army (alternatively the GRU, or the VDV troops stationed there as peacekeepers), although no evidence to support these allegations was ever found. In any case, Russia did not provide any resistance to the volunteers, which would later prove a mistake. Basayev's volunteer unit would go on to form the core of his experienced and battle-hardened "Abkhaz Battalion" in the first Chechen war. It was during the first Chechen War that he developed his now trademarks affinity for AK-47's, and he made the note of posing with his firearms beside him in videos, and public interviews. He was said to be a crack shot.

Few authoritative accounts of Basayev's life after Abkhazia exist. According to some sources, Basayev moved on to Azerbaijan, where he aided Azerbaijani forces in their less-successful war against Armenian separatists in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. After Azerbaijan, by some accounts he reputedly travelled to Afghanistan, making his first contacts with Al-Qaeda and other pan-Islamic fundamentalist organizations, as well as the Wahabbism sect, to which he would later convert. Other sources claim that after Abkhazia, Basayev moved to Chechnya and became a successful entrepreneur in the Chechen mafia, organizing train-car theft and drug dealing networks. While pro-Chechen sources claim that such allegations about Basayev's criminal activity were disseminated by the Russian FSB and were untrue, no other explanation of Basayev's phenomenal personal wealth has been provided. According to Basayev, millions of dollars were donated to him by unnamed foreign businessmen from the Chechen diaspora. [link]

Basayev and the First Chechen War

Basayev's "Abkhaz Battalion" suffered many casualties, particularly during battles around Vedeno in May and their ranks sank to as low as 200 men, a tenth of their numbers just five months earlier. At this time, Basayev also suffered a personal tragedy. On June 3, during a Russian air raid on Basayev's hometown of Dyshne-Vedeno, a bomb landed on Basayev's family home, killing eleven members of his immediate and extended family. Among them were his wife and children.

With the situation becoming increasingly desperate, Chechen forces resorted to a series of deadly terrorist attacks against civilians on Russian soil in an attempt to force a stop to the war. Basayev led the most famous such attack, the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis in June 1995. Shamil's large band seized the Budyonnovsk hospital and the 1,600 people inside for a period of several days. In total, 129 people died and 415 were wounded. Although he failed in his demand for the removal of Russian forces from Chechnya, he did successfully negotiate a stop to the Russian advance and an initiation of peace talks with the Russian government, saving the Chechen resistance by giving them time to regroup and recover. Basayev and his fighters were able to successfully retreat back to Chechnya under cover of hostages. The media coverage surrounding the hostage-taking and Basayev's safe retreat propelled the then mostly unknown Basayev into the international spotlight, and made him Chechnya's most famed national hero overnight. As a result of the raid, military actions on the territory of the Chechen republic largely stopped for several months.

By 1996, he had been promoted to Commander of the Chechen Armed Forces. In July, he was implicated in the death of pro-Russian warlord Ruslan Labazanov. In August 1996, he led a successful operation to retake the Chechen capital Grozny. The Russian defence collapsed and the Yeltsin government sued for peace, bringing in former General Aleksandr Lebed as a negotiator. A peace agreement was concluded between the Chechens and Russians, under which the Chechens acquired de facto independence from Russia. He stepped down from his military position in December 1996 to run for president in Chechnya's second (and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's first) presidential elections. Basayev came in second place to Aslan Maskhadov, obtaining 23.5% of the votes.

Around January 1, 1998 he was appointed Prime Minister of Chechnya by president Aslan Maskhadov for a six month term, after which he resigned.

Basayev in the Second Chechen War

In early September, a series of bombings of Russian apartment blocks took place, killing 293 people. The attacks were blamed on Chechen terrorists, although this attribution remains controversial. Although Basayev and Khattab denied responsibility, Khattab had earlier threatened to launch terrorist attacks against Russian civilians in a videotaped address made shortly after the August setbacks, and Basayev himself made similar threats after the bombings. The Russian government blamed the Chechen government for allowing Basayev to use Chechnya as a base. Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov denied any involvement in the attacks, but at the same time took no actions to stop Basayev or Khattab. The Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, promised a harsh crackdown on Chechen terrorists: "We'll get them anywhere. If we find terrorists in the shithouse, then we'll waste them in the shithouse. That's all there is to it." By the end of September the Second Chechen War was underway.

2000-2003

• During the rebel withdrawal from Grozny in January 2000 Basayev lost a foot after stepping on a landmine while leading his men through a mine field. Somewhat morbidly, the operation to amputate his foot was videotaped and later televised by Russia's NTV network and Reuters, showing his foot being removed by doctors using a local anaesthetic while the shaven-headed Basayev watched impassively. Despite this injury, Basayev eluded Russian capture together with other rebels by hiding in forests and mountains. He welcomed assistance from foreign fighters from Afghanistan and other Islamic countries, encouraging them to join the Chechen cause.

Government House bombing

• In January 2002, Basayev's father Salman Basayev was reputedly killed by Russian forces.[link] This has not been independently confirmed. Shamil's younger brother, Shirvani, was reported dead by the Russians in 2000, but is, according to numerous accounts, actually living in exile in Turkey where he is involved in coordination of the activities of the diaspora.

• Around November 2, 2002 Basayev said on a rebel website that he was responsible for the Moscow theatre siege. He also tendered his resignation from all posts in Maskhadov's deposed government apart from the reconnaissance and sabotage battalion. He defended the operation but asked Maskhadov for forgiveness for not informing him of it.

• On December 27, 2002, Chechen suicide bombers rammed vehicles into the republic's government headquarters in Grozny, bringing down the four-storey building and killing about 80 people. Basayev claimed responsibility, published the video of the attack, and said he personally triggered the bombs by a remote control.

• From June till August 2003 Basayev lived in the town of Baksan in nearby Kabardino-Balkaria. In August 2003, a skirmish took place between the rebels and policemen from Baksan, who came to check Basayev's house; the rebels managed to escape.

2004

• In 2004 Basayev was accused of commanding a raid on the Russian republic of Ingushetia. In fact, he was shown in a video made of the raid, in which he led a large group of militants. Around 90 people died in this attack; most of them local members of the Russian security forces, including the Minister of Interior and the chief prosecutors.

Shamil Basayev (left) and Aslan Maskhadov (right), during Ramadan 2004

• On May 9, 2004 the pro-Russian Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov was killed in a bomb attack for which Basayev later claimed responsibility.

• Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the Beslan school siege in September 2004 in which over 350 people, most of them children, were killed and hundreds more injured. The Russian government put up a bounty of 300m rubles ($10m) for information leading to his capture. Basayev himself did not participate in the seizure of the school in Beslan, but claimed to have organized and financed the attack, boasting that the whole operation cost only 8,000 euro. Newspaper reports also linked his Ingush deputy, Magomet Yevloyev, to the Beslan attack.

• Basayev also claimed responsibility for the attacks against civilians during the previous week, in which a metro station in Moscow was bombed, killing 10 people, and two airliners were blown up by suicide bombers, killing 89 people. Basayev dubbed these attacks "Operation Boomerang," supposedily an act of revenge for death and destruction caused by the Russian forces in Chechnya.

2005

• On February 3, 2005, British Channel 4 announced that it would air Shamil Basayev's interview. In response Russian Foreign Ministry said that the broadcast could aid terrorists in achieving their goals and demanded that the British Government call off the broadcast. But the British Foreign Office replied that it could not intervene in the affairs of a private TV channel and the interview was aired as scheduled. The same day, Russian media reported that Shamil Basayev had been killed.#redirect [[Template:fact]] It was the 6th such report about Basayev's demise since 1999.#redirect [[Template:fact]]

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• In May, 2005, Basayev reportedly claimed responsibility for the power outage in Moscow. The BBC reported that the claim for responsibility was made on a web site connected to Basayev, but conflicted with official reports that sabotage was not involved.

• Even though Basayev had a US$10 million bounty on his head, he gave an interview to Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky in which he described himself as "a bad guy, a bandit, a terrorist." But, to justify his own acts to intentionally kill unarmed civilians, women and children, he claimed that the Russians "officially" killed 40,000 Chechen children and are therefore terrorists as well. This interview was broadcast on American Television Network ABC's Nightline program, to the protest of the Russian Government; on August 2, 2005, Moscow banned journalists from U.S. television channel ABC from working in Russia after the channel broadcast an interview.

• On August 23, 2005, Basayev rejoined the Chechen separatist government, taking the post of first deputy chairman.#redirect [[Template:fact]]

• Basayev claimed responsibility for a raid on Nalchik, the capital of the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. The raid occurred on 13 October and 14 October 2005. Basayev said that he and his "main units" were only in the city for two hours on the 13th, then left. There were reports that he had died during the raid, but this was contradicted when the separatist website, Kavkaz Center, posted a letter from him.

2006

• In March 2006, Prime Minister of Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that upwards of 3,000 police officers were hunting for Basayev in the southern mountains.

• On June 15 Basayev repeated his claim of responsibility for the bombing that killed the Moscow-backed president, Akhmad Kadyrov, saying he had paid $50,000 to those who carried out the assassination. The warlord also said he had put a $25,000 bounty on the head of Kadyrov's son, Ramzan Kadyrov. Basayev mocked Ramzan Kadyrov --a flamboyant prime minister in the regional government who heads widely feared paramilitary forces accused of abducting civilians and other violence-- in offering the bounty by saying: "He isn't worth more than that."

• On June 27 Shamil Basayev was made Ichkerian vice-president. On July 10, at 1.06 pm Moscow time, Kavkaz Center quoted him as thanking the Iraqi Mujahideen for eliminating the captured Russian diplomats in Iraq and calling it "a worthy answer to the murder by Russian terrorists from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation of the Chechen diplomat, ex-president of CRI, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev".

Death

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant an autopsy of Shamil Basaev proved that he was killed by an Improvised explosive device stuffed with wire ("the medical assessors discovered some 15 similar pieces of wire rod, 10-30 millimeters long and 3-4 millimeters in diameter, in the body.") such bombs are signature products of a Dagestan terrorist group Shariat. The newspaper speculates that the FSB would never use a primitive hand-made bomb when it has advanced high-tech weapons at it's disposal, instead the newspaper suspects that Rappani Khalilov (Rabbani) a rival terrorist leader and a former subordinate of Shamil Basayew was responsible for the attack.