Disrupting Escalation Of Terror In Russia To Prevent - Belfer Center ...

of his predecessor. He handed over the effective control and coordination of operations to two
extremists, Shamil Basayev and Doku Umarov. 24 Both are firmly inclined to pursue Chechnya’s
secession from Russia by violent means, while the former also frames the rebels’ struggle as
jihad against infidels.
Basayev had initially been a champion of the secular model, but when Islamism emerged
at the end of the first military conflict in Chechnya, he quickly adopted this ideology and
befriended a chief proponent of Wahhabism in Chechnya: Jordanian-born warlord Umar Ibn al-
Khattab. Khattab arrived in Chechnya with several dozen Arab Islamist fighters to fight the
“infidels” in 1996, and remained there even after the Chechen rebels won the war and achieved
de facto independence. 25
Khattab’s arrival and the subsequent growth of his influence in Chechnya signified a shift
in ideology in the Chechen movement, from that of secular indolence to holy war. In the absence
of support from international donors and neighbors, this shift was a prerequisite for the
separatists—Islamism was the fastest and easiest way to expand the sympathetic constituency
abroad and gain financial and political support. As a result of this ideological shift, the goals of
the movement had to shift as well. In August and September 1999, Basayev and Khattab led two
raids into the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan under the proclaimed goal of
establishing an Islamic state on the territory of the Caucasus. 26
24 Sadulayev appointed Basayev in August 2005 to the post of first deputy prime minister in the separatist
government, in what may reflect the growing influence of religious radicals in the rebel cause. Maskhadov had
previously suspended Basayev from his posts in the rebel hierarchy and formally launched an investigation into his
actions after Basayev claimed responsibility for ordering a hostage-taking raid on a Moscow theater in October
2002.
25 Khattab reportedly was fighting against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and retained connections to
what later emerged as al-Qaida. After the first war in Chechnya, Khattab set up at least seventeen training camps in
Chechnya. Michael Wines, “Russia Releases Tape to Support Claim of Chechen Rebel’s Death,” New York Times,
April 27, 2002.
26 The text of Basayev’s Islamic Shura declaration of the Islamic State of Dagestan on August 10, 1999 can be
viewed at the Russky Zhurnal’s news archive at http://www.russ.ru/politics/news/1999/08/10.htm#7.
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