From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 3/1/2007 1:51 PM
Chechnya Weekly - Volume VIII, Issue 9
March 1, 2007

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Putin Nominates Kadyrov as Chechnya’s President
* Chechen Officials Lash Out at Boycott of Human Rights Conference
* Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Visits Chechnya
* Chechen Rebels and Pro-Moscow Officials Mark Deportation Anniversary
* Briefs
* Quotes of the Week
* Takhir Bataev: Chechnya’s Elusive Nogai Warlord
By Andrei Smirnov
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Putin Nominates Kadyrov as Chechnya’s President

President Vladimir Putin announced on March 1 that he was nominating Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s acting president, as the republic’s new president and was submitting Kadyrov’s name to the republic’s parliament for its approval. According to Newsru.com, Putin made the announcement during a meeting with Kadyrov at the presidential residence of Novo-Ogarevo, outside of Moscow. “I proceeded on the principle that much has been done by you for the reconstruction of Chechnya in recent years, both in the capacity of deputy chairman of the [Chechen] government and in the capacity of head of the republic’s government,” Putin told Kadyrov. “It helps that you applied all of your energy so that Chechnya’s rehabilitation would continue at the same tempo – both social and economic rehabilitation.”

Newsru.com reported that two other candidates had been suggested to Putin - Muslim Khuchiev, first deputy head of the Chechen presidential and governmental apparatus and leader of the regional branch of A Just Russia, the recently created pro-Kremlin party; and Shakhid Dzhamaldaev, head of the Grozny district (Chechnya Weekly, February 22). “But those two candidates fulfilled the role of ‘extras,’ in that more than one candidate had to be presented to the Russian president for confirmation in order to create the illusion of a ‘democratic appointment,’” Newsru.com wrote.

Kadyrov, for his part, told Putin during their Novo-Ogarevo meeting that if Chechnya’s parliament approves him as the republic’s president, “I will do everything to continue, in a worthy manner, the work begun by my father, so that the republic’s inhabitants feel secure [and] live with dignity; so that there are no manifestations of international terrorism and Wahhabism.” He also said that he would work on reducing unemployment, vowing that if the federal center continues to provide the republic with the same aid it is providing today, “then in the coming years, Chechnya will be the calmest and most prosperous region” of the country. “I am sure that these are not just words: our people want to work, be part of Russia, and be at peace with other peoples,” Kadyrov said.

Later, on March 1, Kadyrov told Interfax he understands “that the difficulties are far greater than the ones we see today. Every person who went through two terrible wars, who were left without a roof over their head, lost relatives and friends, are relying today on the authorities, hoping they will be given housing and work soon, rather than in the distant future. I plan to justify those hopes.” Kadyrov said that around 1,000 families would receive “well-furnished” apartments before the end of this year, and that hospitals, schools and kindergartens would be built. He also said he planned to “completely extirpate the practice of ‘disappearing people’ [and] the application of unlawful methods in conducting investigations.” He added: “From now on, not one structure of the law-enforcement or security departments will resort to such methods, and we will not allow anyone to do this. Law and order will triumph on the territory of the Chechen Republic. I say this with complete responsibility, because I know that I am supported by the whole Chechen nation in this.” According to Newsru.com, he stressed that in referring to “the Chechen nation,” he meant not only ethnic Chechens, but also “Russians, Armenians, Avars, Nogais and many others who have shared all the hardships of the recent years with the Chechens.”

Chechen Officials Lash Out at Boycott of Human Rights Conference

A human rights conference organized under the auspices of the Chechen government was set to open in Grozny on March 1, with some leading Russian and international human rights groups boycotting the event and top Chechen government officials criticizing them for doing so. On March 1, Newsru.com quoted Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, Nurdi Nukhazhiev, as saying that the boycotting groups, “with obstinacy,” do not want to admit to the positive changes that have taken place in the republic in regard to human rights. “There have been changes, and they are significant,” he said. “The institution of a human rights commissioner is operating in the republic; a constitution that guarantees [human rights] has been adopted; a parliament is working; the law-enforcement organs have managed to reduce the number of personal crimes, of kidnappings.” Nukhazhiev said that in refusing to participate in the conference, some non-governmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch Amnesty International, the For Human Rights movement and the Moscow Helsinki group, were being guided by “certain political considerations.” This, he said, is a “non-constructive position.”

In comments reported by the Moscow Times on March 1, the Chechen government’s representative in Moscow, Ziyad Sabsabi, offered an even harsher criticism of the boycotters. “The human rights activists are acting like a sulking child who has been offended,” he said.

Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva and For Human Rights head Lev Ponomarev were among those who signed a statement earlier this month declaring they could not participate in the conference because of the continued “massive and gross violations of human rights, including extra-judicial killings, kidnappings and torture, corruption and extortion of humanitarian aid and compensation” in Chechnya. “We consider it impossible to participate in the work of the human rights conference in Grozny conducted by Ramzan Kadyrov,” the signatories stated (Chechnya Weekly, February 22).

The Moscow Times on March 1 quoted Alexeyeva as defending her group’s decision to stay away from the conference. “You think that Mr. Kadyrov will stop torturing people just because I have spoken to him?” she said. “I have cried with the relatives of the people he has tortured with his own hands. Meeting with a torturer is something I cannot allow myself to do as a human being.”

Lev Ponomarev also put forward the views of the boycotters, stating in comments quoted by Kavkazky Uzel on February 27 that “a cult of personality is developing in Chechnya and, of course, one facet of the personality cult will be his [Kadyrov’s] human rights activities.” Ponomarev added: “We know that he has violated rights – and many rights, at that; his subordinates have violated the right to life – murdering, torturing people; kidnappings and so on. Not one of these cases has received the necessary scrutiny, and we have not heard the necessary reaction from him as [Chechen] president.”

Ponomarev said that what he characterized as Kadyrov’s only foray into human rights advocacy – the Chechen leader’s call for a retrial of Zara Murtazalieva, the Chechen woman sentenced to nine years in prison in 2005 for allegedly attempting to carry out a terrorist bombing in Moscow in 2004 (Chechnya Weekly, January 25) – was more of a criticism of the federal authorities than a defense of Murtazalieva. “As for Chechnya itself and the actions of Kadyrov’s guards and retainers, he has never expressed himself critically. As the guarantor of human rights in Chechnya, he has not succeeded. Therefore, we consider it unnecessary and wrong to participate in this conference. It would legitimize [him] as a full-fledged guarantor of human rights.”

Ponomarev added: “You can point to dozens of instances in which Ramzan Kadyrov could have acted to improve the human rights situation. When he does do that, then, perhaps he will win trust among human rights organizations. But for now, he can hold as many pseudo human rights conferences as he likes, but still, no one will believe him.”

Reuters on March 1 reported that both Svetlana Gannushkina, who is chairperson of the “Grazhdanskoe sodeistvie” (Civil Assistance) Committee, and the Memorial rights group also said they were not attending the conference. “I can’t say I am deliberately boycotting it but I think that politics should not be mixed with human rights," Gannushkina told Reuters by telephone from Europe. “We should first understand how to work with Kadyrov and only then hold human rights conferences.”

Kavkazky Uzel reported that also among those invited to the Grozny human rights conference were Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights ombudsman, and Ella Pamfilova, who chairs the Russian president’s Council for Developing Civil Institutions and Human Rights. The Moscow Times reported on March 1 that Pamfilova planned to attend. Newsru.com reported on March 1 that Lukin would not attend because of a prior commitment.

On March 1, Newsru.com quoted Kadyrov as saying in reference to the human rights conference in Grozny: “At times, we are reproached for the fact that we used the wrong methods, but in a destroyed republic, all force and means had to be aimed at creating the basis for further movement ahead. Now, everyone, including human rights activists, will be able to visit any place in the republic, communicate with people, and they will be assured of unencumbered access everywhere.”

Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Visits Chechnya

Council of Europe Commissioner on Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg was the only major Western figure set to attend the Grozny human rights conference. Hammarberg arrived in Chechnya on February 26 for a three-day visit. According a Council of Europe press release that was posted on the council’s website (www.Coe.int) on February 23, he planned to visit Chechnya from February 26 to March 2, during which time he would visit a military base of the Chechen Ministry of Interior, a prison, a police station, a republican hospital and schools, and give a lecture at the University of Grozny. The press release stated that he had scheduled meetings with Kadyrov and the republican prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov, would “also hold discussions with local NGOs and visit other areas of the republic” and planned to visit “the memorial that was erected in memory of the tragedy in Beslan, North Ossetia.” After leaving Chechnya, Hammarberg planned to meet with Russian federal officials in Moscow and hold a press conference in the Russian capital on March 2, the Council of Europe press release stated. It made no mention of the March 1 human rights conference in Grozny or whether Hammarberg planned to attend. Still, various Russian media reported that he had confirmed his attendance.

Kommersant, on February 28, quoted Hammarberg as saying during a visit to Beslan: “I am going to Chechnya in order to ascertain whether those guilty of human rights abuses have been punished and to find out what is being done in the republic to establish normal life.” Interfax reported on February 27 that Hammarberg visited a remand prison in Grozny, where, he said, inmates told him that they had been abused. “Today, I was convinced that people are not only beaten, but also tortured and forced under torture to sign confessions for crimes they did not commit,” Hammarberg said during a meeting with Kadyrov in the Chechen capital. “Some complain to the authorities, but they are treated even more harshly.” Hammarberg stressed that the problem is with “a whole system, and not isolated cases.” He said he came to that conclusion after visiting a remand prison in Grozny, where he spoke with inmates who were being held in three cells.

Kadyrov, for his part, said that he had “serious questions on this issue for ORB-2 (Operational Investigative Bureau) of the Main Directorate of the Russian MVD for the Southern Federal District.” He added: “I have repeatedly raised the issue that human rights are being violated in this structure, [that] force is being used against the detainees, However, my demands to introduce order were taken as an attempt to override that sub-unit. If I am asked to deal with that structure, I will seek the punishment of those who are guilty and get things put in order.” Hammarberg, for his part, then added: “I will meet with representatives of the federal power bodies in Moscow and inform them about this situation.”

The Chechen government’s human rights ombudsman, Nurdi Nukhazhiev, who also attended the meeting between Hammarberg and Kadyrov, said that he would present the Council of Europe human rights commissioner with “a similar report about torture in that sub-unit [ORB-2] prepared by human rights organizations. Earlier, we handed that report over to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.” Nukhazhiev also called on Hammarberg to “raise this issue in Moscow with federal power bodies,” adding, “ORB-2 maintains an illegal remand prison on its territory. This violates Russian legislation that is currently in force. But we have not managed to change this situation.”

Kadyrov’s charges of torture against ORB-2 may have been designed in part to deflect similar charges against units under his own control, given that ORB-2 is under the purview of Russia’s Interior Ministry. In fact, ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying during his meeting with Hammarberg that claims of secret prisons in Chechnya are simply untrue. “Statements of this nature serve our country’s ill-wishers,” Kadyrov said. He made a similar denial about the existence of secret prisons last May in response to a report by the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. That report, entitled “Unofficial Places of Detention in the Chechen Republic,” claimed that security forces loyal to Kadyrov maintained secret prisons throughout Chechnya (Chechnya Weekly, May 25, 2006).

According to Interfax, during his meeting in Grozny with Hammarberg, Kadyrov added that charges like those made against ORB-2 had not been made against “the structures of other federal power and law-enforcement agencies deployed in Chechnya.” Responding to questions from foreign journalists, Kadyrov also suggested that it had not been his responsibility to end such abuses, given that “until now, I was responsible for economic issues – for the reconstruction of the economic and social spheres – and the president of the Chechen Republic should have ensured the observance of human rights,” the latter being a clear reference to former Chechen President Alu Alkhanov. Kadyrov told Hammarberg: “If, by the will of the Almighty, I become president of Chechnya, I, with all responsibility, state that there will not be one case of kidnapping or violation of human rights by law-enforcement organs in Chechnya.”

Kommersant reported on February 28 that upon his arrival in Grozny, Hammarberg visited the base of the “Sever” battalion, which is under the command of the federal Interior Ministry’s Troops. As the newspaper stated, its fighters previously belonged to the Chechen presidential security service under the command of Kadyrov and is primarily composed of amnestied rebel fighters. “As before, I believe that all of the security forces in the Chechen Republic, as in any other region or country, must…be part of fixed departments,” Kommersant quoted Hammarberg as saying. According to the newspaper, he expressed satisfaction over the fact that now, “all of the sub-units of the [former Chechen presidential] security service are part of the Russian law-enforcement bodies.”

It is worth noting that one major Russian news agency chose to accentuate Hammarberg’s positive comments about the situation in Chechnya. In a report filed from Gudermes on February 27, Interfax stated that Hammarberg had “said he was stunned by the changes that have occurred in Chechnya and particularly in its capital, Grozny.” The news agency said Hammarberg had told journalists in Grozny that “he had made a long trip around Grozny and several districts and had seen a lot of positive changes.” Moreover, “he had been shocked by Grozny’s reconstruction, especially the work done in the central part of the city, and that these changes had encouraged him.” Interfax wrote, “Hammarberg said his predecessor, Alvaro Gil-Robles, had also repeatedly pointed out that the Chechen economy should be developed, and that he was pleased to see that those recommendations had been given proper consideration.” The news agency reported that Hammarberg also “praised the Chechen people’s desire to revive the republic’s economy, create more jobs, and restore facilities destroyed by the war.”

RIA Novosti, however, reported from Grozny on February 27 that Hammarberg had told reporters after visiting the republican clinical hospital, Grozny Lycee No. 1 and the “Sever” battalion’s base: “Great progress is noticeable in the economic sphere, but I came to familiarize myself with the situation connected with the observance of human rights.”

The news agency added: “The commissioner also plans to study the situation connected to the course of the investigations of crimes of the previous years, as well as ‘issues regarding the observance of human rights in the Chechen Republic today.’ ‘A conversation on that subject has already started,’ Hammarberg noted. He also emphasized that in ‘the republic there should not be any kind of uncontrolled armed groups.’”

Chechen Rebels and Pro-Moscow Officials Mark Deportation Anniversary

In a statement posted on the separatist Kavkaz-Center website on February 23, the 63rd anniversary of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people in 1944, Chechen rebel leader Dokku Umarov, who is president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) and “emir” of the ChRI’s GKO [State Defense Committee]-Majlis Shura, noted that on February 23, 1994, then-Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev had issued a special decree designating the anniversary the Day of Rebirth of the Chechen Nation. “In that way, we made it clear that the Chechen nation, having renewed its statehood, will never kneel or submit to the enemy that for hundreds of years has tried to break our will and our right to our way of life, religion and freedom,” Umarov said.

Umarov’s statement continued: “The Chechen nation, as has already happened more than once in its history, is experiencing hard times. The occupiers are using the most refined and crafty methods of war, relying on a small group of turncoats and apostates. Genocide has taken on total forms. The physical destruction of the people by means of the most modern kinds of weaponry, including weapons of mass destruction, is accompanied by psychological destruction. Dirty customs and laws, moral decay and abomination are being spread. Violence and aggression are aimed not only against our state, but also against the consciousness of our people, whom they want to turn into a rootless, cowed mass that knows neither honor nor dignity. Precisely because of this, it is our religion, Islam, more than anything else, which is subject to attack. The enemy knows that Islam is our protection, support, ally and the source from which the nation draws its strength. The aggressor clearly understands that Islam is the basis of our way of life, our culture, our freedom, all of which can only be changed by first perverting and destroying religion. Therefore, the enemy is conducting an insidious psychological war against Muslims, using apostates, traitors, cowards and turncoats. But, thanks to the mercy of Allah, such people are a minority among us. The Jihad continues. The enemy’s lies and propaganda does not change the situation. We are not getting tired, and our patience is not running out. The number of mujahideen is growing.”

Umarov called on “all the Muslims of the Caucasus” and “the fighting mujahideen, the best people among us,” to be patient, “because victory comes to those who are patient.” He added: “Truly, Allah the Almighty and the Sublime is with us in our Jihad. Do not lose heart and quit fighting. And when it gets particularly hard, remember that there are those who do not have the opportunity to fight and are only awaiting their fate, and it is a great humiliation. What is happening to us today is happening at the pleasure of the Almighty Allah, because it was prescribed to us from on high. We hope for the best. And, if others do not rush to help, then remember that Allah alone can grant victory. And, if others turn away, then remember that Allah does not turn away from his sincerely believing slaves. If you fight, then fight on the path of Allah, and then the Most High will strengthen the ranks of those fighting and give you victory. Fear nothing other than Allah, and then others will fear you. Know that victory is granted not to those who surpass the opponent in numbers or modern military materiel, but to those who possess the fear of God and are ashamed before the Most High and His Angels to commit sinful deeds. So fight on the path to Allah, be God-fearing, do good deeds, be righteous, fulfill the laws of Allah and refrain from what He has forbidden, and the Most High will grant victory, Inshallah!”

The separatist Daymohk website posted a statement from Akhmed Zakaev, the London-based ChRI foreign minister, to “the North Caucasian diaspora” marking the deportation anniversary. The anniversary, he said, “serves as yet another reminder that the vicious circle of violence against the North Caucasians will come to an end only with their liberation from colonial dependence.” The “heroic resistance of the North Caucasus,” which is based mainly on the “Chechen armed forces” headed by Dokku Umarov, “needs your moral, political and material support,” Zakaev told the Chechens living abroad. “Moreover, any support for our anti-colonial struggle completely fits with the principles and norms of international law,” the statement added. It concluded: “Let there be no doubt! The process of the decolonization of our Motherland has taken on an irreversible character. No one can stop it, but you can hasten it. Allahu Akbar!”

Meanwhile, RIA Novosti reported on February 23 that commemorations marking the anniversary of the deportation took place across Chechnya. Interfax quoted Chechnya’s mufti, Sultan Mirzaev, as saying that during the 13 years of exile in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia, the entire Chechen population was practically halved despite their traditionally high birth rates. As a result, he said, almost all families in the republic lost relatives during this period. Newsru.com quoted the speaker of the Chechen People’s Assembly, Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, as saying that around a half million people died during the 13 years in exile and that the republic’s leadership has decided to build a large memorial to commemorate the victims of Stalinist repression that will be completed before the end of this year. According to the website, Chechens marked the deportation anniversary by honoring those who died in exile in accordance with Muslim rites – by reading prayers, sacrificing livestock and distributing meat to poor families and orphans.

Ingush President Murat Zyazikov also addressed the nation on the anniversary of the deportation. According to Ingushetiya.ru, he thanked the Russians, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz who had helped the Ingush survive in exile. “For the 13 long years that we were far away from our motherland, our people did not lose their spiritual and moral values, and they preserved their language and culture,” he said. “Having chosen a democratic path of development, Russia has condemned the criminal policy of genocide and repression against the country's peoples and citizens. Today, the Ingush people live and work within the family of peoples of Great Russia for the country’s further prosperity.”

BRIEFS

- RAMZAN PROPOSES TO MRS. KENYA

The Daily Telegraph reported on February 28 that during a visit to Chechnya by participants in the 2007 Mrs. World pageant, Chechnya’s acting president, Ramzan Kadyrov, offered Caroline Varkaik, Kenya’s contender in the contest, the opportunity to become one of his wives and, as the British newspaper put it, “sweetened the proposal by presenting her with two horses, two chickens and a goat.” According to the Daily Telegraph, the Kenyan beauty queen looked “briefly surprised” and then “clasped Mr. Kadyrov in a bear hug and promised to return in a year.” The paper added, “Touring Russia ahead of the contest’s finals, to be held in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on March 8, many of the beauty queens on board the charter flight that took them to the neighboring and almost lawless province of Ingushetia, were reportedly unaware of their destination. They were then whisked to Chechnya in a convoy of 15 black Porsches, with armed soldiers positioned every 500 yards along the 30-mile road to protect them from rebel attack.” It is worth noting that Kadyrov has on several occasions spoken in favor of polygamy, but last October denied that he is “trying to introduce polygamy” or force it upon anyone (Chechnya Weekly, October 5, February 2 and 16, January 19, 2006).

- Five Chechen Policemen Die in Blast

Russian news agencies reported on February 23 that five police officers had been killed in an explosion at the base of a Chechen Interior Ministry subunit in the Gudermes district. RIA Novosti quoted a republican Interior Ministry source as saying that the incident occurred at a deployment site of the Akhmat Kadyrov Regiment in the settlement of Novogroznensky (also known as Oyskhara) on the administrative border with Dagestan. “Preliminary reports say it was an accident caused by the careless handling of munitions,” the source told the news agency. Later, on February 23, RIA Novosti reported that the blast had occurred not at the subunit’s base, but near a school. The news agency quoted an Interior Ministry source as saying that the policemen had discovered a mine “in the immediate vicinity of the school and, risking their lives, tried to disarm it, to avoid harm to the children,” but that the device had detonated, killing five policemen and wounding two.


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From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24    Sent: 3/1/2007 1:51 PM
- Armed Intruders Raid Ingush Official’s House

The separatist Daymohk website, citing the Chechen National Salvation Committee, reported on February 23 that five armed people wearing camouflage uniforms and masks had broken into the house of Magomed Yandiev, chief of staff of the Ingush People’s Assembly, in the village of Ali-Yurt the previous day. According to Chechen National Salvation Committee sources, the attackers, who spoke in accented Russian, beat Yandiev’s son and wife with the butts of their assault rifles and apparently stole money, valuables and weapons from the house.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“It’s a beautiful girl who should be praised – for her beauty and her figure. As for fear, if you’re a leader, people should fear you. Why? They should not be afraid of being beaten, but they should fear letting down the people who have given them their trust. This is what one should fear. And as for the personality cult, I found out about it just recently. I paid attention to it only after our handsome General Alu [Alkhanov] started talking about it.” —Acting Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, responding to a question about being the object of praise, fear and a personality cult, during an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s North Caucasus Service published on February 27.

“Among those kidnapped…the portion of those who have disappeared without a trace or have been murdered is dropping. From five out of six [in 2001]…to around 40 percent last year…These figures are horrible, but one cannot ignore the decrease. To a great extent, this has occurred as a result of the Chechenization of the conflict. Power – not the governmental power that one usually talks about, but the power to employ unlawful violence – was transferred, to a great degree, from federal structures to local force structures comprised of ethnic Chechens or federal force structures comprised of ethnic Chechens…They are murdering less, fewer people are disappearing. There are more trumped-up criminal cases. More cases [based on testimony extracted through torture] are then taken to court. This is bad, but it’s a different situation. The situation has been changing all the time. From bombardment and shelling in which people are killed, to zachistki, to kidnappings and disappearances. Today, it’s kidnappings, torture, and [rigged] criminal cases. I am not saying that they are always fabricated. There are real terrorists; there is a real terrorist underground that has to be fought. But there is torture, there [are] fabricated cases.” —Aleksandr Cherkasov of Memorial on Ekho Moskvy radio, February 27.

Takhir Bataev: Chechnya’s Elusive Nogai Warlord
By Andrei Smirnov

Early in the morning of February 24, Russian Special Forces supported by military troops started to move slowly around the village of Pervy Kizlyarsky, a settlement located in the Kizlyar District of Dagestan. According to the NTV television channel, armored personnel carriers and mobile military posts blocked all roads to the village, while special units began moving into the center of the village, toward a private house on Ukrainskaya Street. The Federal Security Service (FSB) had received information the previous day that a group of militants from Chechnya was hiding there. At 6:00 PM, the Special Forces encircled the house. However, they were immediately met with fierce resistance from the rebels inside. The Russian servicemen were unable to enter the house due to the heavy rebel fire: the gunmen used assault rifles and under barrel grenade launchers. The Special Forces responded with heavy-machine guns and flamethrowers. Finally, at 11:00 PM, the house was burned to the ground. Two dead bodies were found among the remains. It was then announced that two others had been found. However, many Russian media outlets, including NTV and other television networks, reported that three rebels had been in the house and one of them had managed to escape. Later, on February 26, the rebel command confirmed through the Kavkaz-Center website the loss of two of their fighters in Pervy Kizlyarsky. The authorities, however, insist they killed four in the shoot-out.

Regardless of what the numbers may have been, what is known is that the insurgents who were killed in the village belonged to a rebel group headed by Takhir Bataev, a famous Chechen field commander. The fact that Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, Dagestan’s Interior Minister, and Nikolai Gryaznov, head of the Dagestan branch of the FSB, personally commanded the operation in Pervy Kizlyarsky reveals that the security officials may have been hoping to get Bataev himself; they have been looking for him for quite some time now.

In October 2005, security officials declared that they had killed Bataev in the Dagestan city of Khasavyurt. "Bataev was the right hand of Shamil Basaev," Sergei Solodovnikov, deputy head of the Main Directorate for the Southern Federal District in the Russian Interior Ministry, told Interfax on October 19, after the operation in Khasavyurt. "If you mention the name of Bataev to a resident of [Chechnya’s] Shelkovskoi district, he would be terrified. Not only are people in the Shelkovskoi district scared of him, but also people in other areas of Chechnya." It turned out, however, that Bataev was not killed in Khasavyurt and that a different militant had been mistakenly identified as Bataev.

On September 14, 2006, RIA Novosti reported that law-enforcement officials had obtained intelligence suggesting that militants from the rebel "Nogai Battalion" under the command of Takhir Bataev were concentrating their forces in Dagestan’s Nogai district (EDM, September 26, 2006). In early October 2006, Kavkaz-Center posted a decree from Dokku Umarov that stated that Bataev had been appointed as the commander of the "North-East Front" in Chechnya. After that, Bataev started to play an especially important role in the Chechen insurgency. A photo of Bataev was added to the pantheon of rebel leaders across the Caucasus that can be found on the Kavkaz-Center website’s main page.

Takhir Bataev was born in the Shelkovskoi district in northeast Chechnya. He is not a Chechen, but a Nogai, a minority ethnic group that lives in northern Chechnya as well as in some areas of Dagestan and Stavropol Krai. When Russian troops invaded Chechnya in 1994, many Nogais joined the Chechen resistance movement. The Nogais are devout Muslims and still remember their genocide at the hands of the Tsarist Russian army in the 18th century (EDM, February 16, 2006; EDM, September 26, 2006). The contemporary Russian invasion revived many of these old memories and inspired calls for revenge. Bataev was among hundreds of the Nogais who joined the Chechen rebels and organized the so-called "Nogai Battalion." According to various sources, the battalion consisted, at different times, of 300 to 700 men. Yevgenia Androsova, the press secretary of the FSB branch in Stavropol, said that about 200 young Nogais had been recruited to the battalion (ITAR-Tass, February 11, 2006). Sultan Dautov, who was one of the best police detectives in Chechnya during the Soviet period, was the first commander of the battalion (Moskovsky komslomolets, September 21, 2003).

During the early years of the second Chechen war, the battalion was headed by Adam Khamsatkhanov who was killed in 2001. Khamsatkhanov was replaced by Yulubi Yelgushiev. Yelgushiev was killed in 2004 in the Dagestan city of Kizlyar and after that, Takhir Bataev became the leader of the battalion. In October 2006, Bataev became the commander of all rebel groups that operate in the northeast region of Chechnya, in the north of Dagestan and in Stavropol Krai. Security officials claim that insurgents led by Bataev have conducted about 50 attacks in different areas of the North Caucasus, though mostly in the Shelkovskoi district. Not all of them have been reported by the Russian media. On September 10, 2006, Bataev’s men attacked the district police department in the village of Shelkovskya. On October 5, 2006, another police garrison was attacked in the village of Karagalinsky. On September 19, rebels from the Nogai Battalion attacked the house of Wakhid Mantsaev, deputy chairman of the upper house of Chechnya’s pro-Russian parliament. The rebels under Takhir Bataev’s command continue to regularly attack police patrols, military motorcades and checkpoints in Chechnya and Dagestan.

It is the dream of the commanders of the Russian anti-terrorist forces in the North Caucasus to one day find and kill Takhir Bataev. However, he and his men continue to elude capture by moving around Chechnya, Dagestan and Stavropol Krai. With spring approaching, the hunt for the elusive Bataev is now in full swing.

Andrei Smirnov is an independent journalist covering the North Caucasus. He is based in Russia.
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