Symbolic Blow for Chechen Rebels as Notorious Warlord Killed in Southern Russia

Russia's "Bin Laden" and Mastermind of Beslan Killed

Shamil Basayev, the iconic Chechen rebel warlord, architect of the so-called "terror spectaculars" in Russia, head of the notorious Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs and self-confessed mastermind behind a series of attacks including the Beslan school raid which killed 331, was himself killed yesterday in the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. Rossia state television interrupted broadcasts for a special bulletin in which Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russian special forces had killed Basayev along with a number of associates in a raid in the village of Ekazhevo in Ingushetia, which neighbours Chechnya. According to Patrushev, the FSB was able to track Basayev down after it established contacts with "countries where arms were collected and then transported to Chechnya." The FSB chief did not disclose which foreign entities the FSB had purportedly established contact with. Patrushev also said that Basayev had been planning a terrorist attack in Ingushetia aimed at "pressuring the Russian leadership" during the three-day G8 summit, which is scheduled to open in St Petersburg on 15 July.

Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev and Russian media outlets confirmed that Basayev had been killed when a KamAZ truck packed with an estimated 100 kg of explosives had detonated during a "special operation" which killed three associates of Basayev. While Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev confirmed that Basayev has been killed in an explosion in Ingushetia, he insisted that it had been an accident that that Ingush police had stumbled upon the remains afterwards.

The actual details of Basayev's death will probably never be known and like many other of the Chechen separatists who have come to a bloody end, it is quite natural that the death of the legendary figure would have conflicting narratives. It serves the Chechen separatist purpose to keep alive the myth of Basayev who eluded the Russian and pro-government Chechen forces for so long, whereas for President Putin and the Russian government, the death of Basayev is a major coup ahead of the G8 summit, and it will allow President Putin to deflect any Western criticism of the Russian government and its pro-Moscow satellite government in Chechnya's conduct of the conflict.

The death of Basayev is a major blow for the Chechen separatists, if only symbolically, coming less than a month after the nominal leader of the Chechen rebel movement Adul-Khalim Sadulayev was killed in a special forces raid on his hometown of Argun (see Russia: 19 June 2006: Russian Government Claims Major Victory in Chechnya After Rebel Leader Killed in Raid).

As the architect of the "terror spectacular" which was used so successfully in the seizure of a local hospital in the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk in June 1995 in which 100 people died, the audacious Moscow theatre siege in October 2002 which left 129 people dead and above all the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia which left 331 dead, Basayev was extremely adept at publicising the Chechen separatist cause. In 1999 Basayev skilfully aligned with more radical Islamist rebels who sought to establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus, and who set about undermining the then Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov's position to that end. This allowed Basayev to become a magnet for internal and external funding from both the Chechen diaspora and the more radical Wahabbi sources across the Gulf States.

Nevertheless, in many ways Basayev's influence had begun to wane within the Chechen rebel movement. While he remained the official second-in-command behind Sadulayev's successor, the veteran field commander, Doku Umarov, many within the separatist camp had begun to distance themselves from Basayev. This does not mean that Basayev did not continue to play an active part in the campaign against the authorities. Indeed, he has also been regarded as a key strategist and coordinator between the various North Caucasus fronts in Ingushetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia. However, Sadulayev was credited with persuading Basayev and the hardline Chechen rebel leaders to refrain from the "terror spectaculars" and concentrate their efforts on widening the Chechen conflict to the wider north Caucasus region. Immediately after assuming control of the rebel movement, Sadulayev established a network of field commanders responsible for the various sectors in the North Caucasus. As a result, all of the field commanders across the north Caucasus liaise with Basayev (who had overall responsibility for military operations across the North Caucasus) and the Chechen rebel movement but are essentially autonomous and free to attack the local administrations throughout the region.

Outlook and Implications

Over the past year, both Sadulayev and Doku Umarov have been the main proponents of abandoning the "terror spectaculars" against the civilian population and adopting the so-called North Caucasus front campaign, which has begun to pay dividends. For while the Russian government may be able to claim that the security situation in Chechnya itself has improved, the pro-Chechen rebel forces across the North Caucasus region have skilfully tapped into the population's frustrations with federal government's policy towards the region. Up until late 2005, the Kremlin had largely worked to maintain the status quo, allowing the continued dominance of the regional corporate clan associations across the North Caucasus which has stifled economic development, ostracised those clans and ethnic groups who are left out in the cold, and whose frustrations are then channelled into radical and extremist solutions. Over the past year, the Chechen rebel leadership has given aid to exacerbate the ongoing strife in a number of regions. While Basayev may have played a key role as a coordinator, he was not the architect and some other figure will step into his shoes to liaise between the various field commanders in Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Stavropol, Karachayevo-Cherkessia, and Krasnodar.

While the removal of Basayev strips the rebel movement of its only politician, it does leave Doku Umarov as the undisputed leader of the separatist movement. Umarov will undoubtedly strive to continue Sadulayev's strategy and avoid targeting civilian targets wherever possible. At the same time it opens the door for the Chechen rebel movement to reorientate themselves as a predominately nationalist cause, and play down the insignificant but existing links to international radical Islamic terror groups. If they skilfully manage their public relations campaign, this will allow the Chechen rebels to recapture the sympathy of the world's public, which was lost after Beslan.

In many ways, the death of Basayev represents something of a crossroads for both the rebel movement and the Russian government. Having flirted with adopting similar tactics and positions to other radical Islamic movements across the Gulf States, Palestine and Iraq, the Chechen separatists have distanced themselves and adopted a clearer, more defined strategy. At the same time, the removal of Basayev leaves the Russian state with a potential dilemma. It can continue with the so-called "normalisation" policy, establishing toothless institutional structures over Chechnya such as a regional parliament which is naturally dominated by the pro-presidential United Russia party – led by Kadyrov and his Benoy teip (clan) while backing the ruling elites across the North Caucasus. For the Kremlin, this is likely to result in the continuation of the conflict across the region for at least another generation. The other option would be to embrace some degree of peace talks and allow those groups who have been left out of power in the North Caucasus some say in their own affairs. In the wake of the Beslan siege, Putin dispatched his most able and trusted administrator, Dmitry Kozak, to produce a policy report on the region. Kozak's findings made for sober reading for the Russian president. The government commission urged the government to radically change the current policy in the region, which Kozak claimed only exacerbated endemic corruption in the various government structures. The continued dominance of the regional corporate clan associations stifled any economic development and sidelined those clans and ethnic groups that are then left out in the cold, whose frustrations are then channelled into radical and extremist directions. There has been an awakening in the Kremlin but whether President Putin is willing to gamble his legacy on offering an olive branch to the Chechen rebel movement is another question.