June 17, 2009
Moderate Leader's Death Accelerated Transformation Of Chechen Resistance
by Liz Fuller
The death three years ago today of Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI)
President and resistance commander Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev was a
milestone in the evolution of what emerged in 1994 as an almost
exclusively Chechen fight for independence into a pan-Caucasian,
multinational Islamic resistance movement.
Although
he occupied the post of president for just 15 months, Sadullayev
succeeded in formalizing the organizational and logistical framework to
expand the war into other North Caucasus republics, while at the same
time banning hostage takings and terrorist attacks on civilian targets.
But whether wittingly or under pressure from more radical and pragmatic
figures within the resistance, he also dismissed the predominantly
secular ChRI government and parliament in exile, and established in
January 2006 an advisory Council of Alims (Muslim scholars) of Peoples
of the Caucasus.
Those moves strengthened the radicals,
including veteran ideologue Movladi Udugov, who even at that time
rejected the concept of an independent Chechen state in favor of an
Islamic state encompassing the entire North Caucasus, and who argued
that resistance fighters should not be constrained by the norms of
international law.
Rejected Terrorism
Sadullayev
was born in 1966 in Argun and studied philology in the early 1990s at
Grozny State University. In the interwar period (late 1996-99), he had
a regular program on Chechen state television devoted to Islam, and in
1999, then-ChRI President Aslan Maskhadov appointed him to head a
commission for constitutional Shari'a reform. Maskhadov also offered
Sadullayev the post of head of the Supreme Shari’a Court, an offer that
the quintessentially modest and gentle Sadullayev rejected on the
grounds that he did not have sufficient clerical knowledge to pass
judgment on others.
Sadullayev took up arms following the
resumption of hostilities in October 1999, and was approved as
Maskhadov's successor days after the latter was killed in early March
2005.
In an extensive interview in June 2005 with
RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service, Sadullayev said that even though
individual Chechen field commanders had in the past engaged in mass
hostage-takings -- in Moscow in October 2002 and Beslan, North Ossetia,
in September 2004 -- such actions were "not coordinated with the policy
of the Chechen state and the State Defense Committee," which
consistently rejected terrorism as a tactic.
"The government
of the ChRI considered and considers it to be inadmissible, including
for [radical field commander Shamil] Basayev, to make peaceful citizens
of Russia, especially women and children, the object of attacks," he
said.
He said that "terrorism is not the path that the ChRI
government follows," and that "we have always wished to see the
Russo-Chechen war end in peace talks."
Sadullayev went on to
speak with undisguised contempt of those Chechens who collaborate with
Moscow. He affirmed that "the Chechen people will be never be subdued
by foreigners… I repeat once again: Chechens never will be slaves of
the Russians."
Instead, Sadullayev said, Chechens want to build a free Muslim state.
"Chechens
seek to build a free, Islamic state that has good relations with all
its neighbors, including Russia, based on mutual trust and respect for
each other," he said.
Sadullayev added that Islam has become,
and will always remain, an integral component of Chechen culture,
national character, and daily life.
Maskhadov had consistently
argued against extending resistance activities beyond the borders of
Chechnya. In a rejection of that strategy, Sadullayev issued a series
of decrees in May 2005 designating the North Caucasus regions of
Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachayevo-Cherkessia,
Adygeya, Stavropol, and Krasnodar as sectors of the so-called Caucasus
Front.
'Russian Yoke'In his interview
with RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service, he explained why resistance
groups elsewhere in the North Caucasus pledged their allegiance to him.
He said those groups are composed of free people "who united to
liberate their republics from the Russian yoke," following the example
of the Chechen people and with their total support.
In June
2005, Sadullayev named as his vice president and eventual successor
veteran field commander Doku Umarov, who concurred with the decision to
extend the struggle against Russian hegemony to other North Caucasus
republics. Umarov in turn formally assumed the presidency days after
Sadullayev was killed in a counterterrorism "sweep" in Argun in June
2006.
Initially, Umarov, too, rejected the use of terrorism as a
tactic. He told RFE/RL's Russian Service in a May 2005 interview that
"if we resort to such methods, I do not think any of us will be able to
retain his human face." And since the death in July 2006 of Basayev,
the resistance has not launched a single large-scale assault comparable
to those on Nazran, Ingushetia, in June 2004, and Nalchik, the capital
of Kabardino-Balkaria, in October 2005.
In a statement on
August 1, 2007, Umarov said that apparent lull should not be attributed
to military weakness, but to long-term strategy. He affirmed that "a
huge amount of preparatory work has been done, and that work is
continuing. The fighters are undergoing intensive training," Umarov
continued, but did not specify what for, adding only that "we are not
in any hurry."
In late 2007, apparently under pressure from
Udugov, Umarov proclaimed himself amir of the North Caucasus and as
such "the sole legal authority on all the territories where mujahedin
have sworn their loyalty to me as leader of the jihad." That
proclamation was construed by the Russian leadership as final and
definitive proof that the North Caucasus resistance is aligned with,
and receives funding from, Al-Qaeda. The ChRI leadership in exile
branded it a betrayal of the cause of Chechen independence to which
Maskhadov remained committed until his death, and formally stripped
Umarov of the post of ChRI president.
In video footage posted
on Udugov's website kavkazcenter.com in late April, Umarov announced
that Basayev's notorious Riyadus Salikhiin death squad has been
revived, and that this year "will be one of offensives."