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even if he specifically orders all Chechen rebels to refrain from such an attack. Fortunately,
there is no evidence that Chechnya-based radical separatist groups possess nuclear bomb know-how
or ready-to-use WMD devices.
Capability to acquire and use
Of all extremist groups plotting and executing acts of terror against Russia, Chechnya-based
terrorist groups have the strongest capabilities to acquire and use NBC materials, if not WMD
devices. In addition to having well-trained fighters, shakhids, 53 and formidable experience in
conventional terrorism, the separatists have the further potential advantage of collaborating with
both Chechen organized crime networks inside Russia and terrorist networks outside the country. 54
Chechen organized criminal groups operate in many major Russian cities. In one instance an
alleged Chechen criminal was even found to have access to the “closed settlements” inhabited by the
personnel of a Russian nuclear production facility. 55 In another instance an insider at a Russian
53 There have been entire units manned with shakhids in the Chechen separatist movement. One such unit was
commanded by Adam Bibulatov during the first Chechen war, according to Bibulatov himself. “Ispoved Smertnika o
Maskhadove, Basaeyve i Berezovskom” [Testimony of Kamikaze about Maskhadov, Basayev and Berezovsky],
Rossiiskaya Gazeta, July 5, 2002.
54 Then head of the Federal Security Service’s Moscow area directorate Yevgeny Savostyanov stated in May 1992 that the
Chechen organized crime grouping is the largest and most influential in the Moscow area and that it had 400 “soldiers.”
“Chechenskoe OPG” [Chechen organized crime grouping], htpp://www.compromat.ru, 1999. The author found no recent
official estimates on Chechen criminal rings.
55 Law-enforcers in the Sverdlovsk region arrested three Chechens who had been allegedly trying to sell weapons and
explosives in March 2002. Police found a valid pass to a high security settlement where workers of a local nuclear
facility reside on one of the arrested individuals. Roman Tarsukhanov could have used his pass to enter the settlement
of Lesnoi, but would not have been able to access the local facility where nuclear warheads are manufactured. A
subsequent search of the arrested individual’s apartment revealed more weapons, a remote-control bomb, and Chechen
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