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Kremlin to concede to a peace deal, but may have been outrageous enough to cause a massive
crackdown in those parts of Chechnya where the presence of rebels was felt strongly. 35
Basayev resumed his attempts to put pressure on the Kremlin after the start of Russia’s
second military campaign in Chechnya, and he ordered the October 2002 attack on a Moscow
theater. After this attack failed to compel Russia to withdraw from Chechnya, Basayev gave up his
operative control of Chechen separatist forces and said he would concentrate on running the
Riyadus-Salikhin shakids battalion. 36 As commander of this unit, he wrote an open letter to NATO
leaders in November 2002 warning of new strikes in Russia if its troops were not pulled out of
Chechnya. 37 Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has classified Basayev’s Riyadus-Salikhin unit as
one of the country’s most dangerous terrorist organizations. 38
In the past, Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected president of separatist Chechnya in January
1997, has tried to position himself as a secular moderate who disapproves of religious fanaticism.
35 “A radiological ‘dirty bomb,’ which would just spread radioactive material over an area, is really a weapon of mass
disruption more than a weapon of mass destruction. By forcing the evacuation of many blocks of a city, it could
potentially cause billions of dollars in economic disruption, and billions more in cleanup costs, but it would not kill tens
of thousands of people in a flash or obliterate a major section of a city as an actual nuclear bomb could.” “Radiological
‘Dirty Bombs,’” Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Harvard University, available at http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/BCSIA/MTA.nsf/www/N-
Terror#dirtybomb as of June 20, 2002. Also, as former director of Central Intelligence John Deutch pointed out, a
terrorist radiological dispersal attack could cause damage to property and the environment, and cause societal and
political disruption. “The Threat of Nuclear Diversion,” Statement for the Record by Director of Central Intelligence
John Deutch, Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Part II, hearings before the Governmental Affairs
Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, U.S. Senate, 104th Congress, 2nd Session, March 1996.
36 Nabi Abdullaev, “Basayev Says Raid Was on His Orders,” The Moscow Times, November 4, 2002.
37 “We are also warning that all military, industrial and strategic facilities on the territory of Russia are legitimate military
targets for us, whomever they may belong to,” Basayev said. “Basayev Says His Rebels Will Launch New Strikes,”
Reuters, November 25, 2002.
38 The service’s spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko told a Russian news agency in February 2003 that the Riyadus-Salikhin
unit is on the FSB’s “list of organizations that cause most damage to the security of Russia” along with al-Qaeda and the
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