The former commander of the Chechen Vostok battalion, Sulim Yamadayev died March 30 of his wounds suffered from an assassination attempt in Dubai two days prior. Sulim and his brothers were the last of the once-powerful Yamadayev family of militants in Chechnya. However, he and his brothers have been picked off one by one over the years, although since September 2008 this targeting has stepped up — leaving not many of this clan left and leaving Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov really without opponents strong enough to challenge him. The five Yamadayev brothers — Ruslan, Sulim, Isa, Dzhabrail and Badrudi — were a tightly knit clan who supported Chechnya's independence from Russia in the 1990s, led a large part of ruthless guerrilla fighters against equally tough Russian troops. The Yamadayevs were one of two main pro-nationalist clans who fought against Russia — the other clan was the Kadyrovs, whose father and son have been president of the region. The two clan families were distinctly different than other militant leaders, like Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, in that the Yamadayev and Kadyrovs fought for Chechen nationalism while the others had a more Islamist ideology. The Yamadayevs and Kadyrovs also did not employ terrorist tactics (such as the Moscow theater siege or Beslan hostage crisis) inside Russia as part of their approach to countering the motherland and instead favored traditional guerilla warfare. This is why the Kremlin had the ability to flip the Yamadayevs and Kadyrovs into a tool it could use to fight the Islamists in Chechnya. Moscow had assured the two pro-nationalist clans that the government would create an autonomous Chechnya in which those two clans would reign if they crushed the Islamist militants. This tactic is the main reason why Russia was able to turn the situation in Chechnya to its advantage, and for the most part, end the war in the region. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced March 27 that he would soon be calling the War in Chechnya concluded and start pulling Russian troops from the republic. But a dangerous dynamic was left inside the country because the Yamadayev and Kadyrov clans each wanted to run the country. The Kremlin set up a system in which the Kadyrovs were given the republic's leadership role and the Yamadayevs were in charge of security. Dzhabrail and Sulim were left in charge of the elite Chechen forces — the Vostok and Zapad battalions. But then members of each family began being picked off by each other and the remaining Islamists in Chechnya. In 2003, Dzhabrail Yamadayev was assassinated. Akhmed Kadyrov, then President of Chechnya, was assassinated in 2004, leaving his son Ramzan to fill the role. Ruslan Yamadayev left Chechnya to become a lobbyist in the Russian Duma against Kadyro's power. A clamp-down was placed on the two now-pro-Kremlin factions for the next few years that lasted until 2008, during which each side tried to use the time to build up a strong foundation to eliminate the other. The Yamadayevs worked the political front in Moscow, with Ruslan stressing the idea of just how dangerous it is to place all of the Kremlin's eggs in Kadyrov's basket. Kadyrov took the time to build up his own security forces outside of the Vostok and Zapad battalions — which comprised approximately 4,000 troops. Kadyrov's ever-growing forces reached nearly 40,000 troops by the end of 2008. In consolidating his power in Chechnya, Kadyrov went back to the task of picking apart the only clan that could challenge his power — the Yamadayevs. On Sept. 24, 2008, Ruslan Yamadayev was gunned down in Moscow just outside Russian government buildings. Now, Sulim has died from gunshot wounds he received while in Dubai. Sulim was in the country under the false name of Madov. He was shot by unknown assailants and Sulim returned fire on his attackers. Sulim was said to just be injured and treated in a military hospital, although Dubai and Russian officials have now confirmed he has died two days after the assassination attempt. This leaves only one Yamadayev brother, Badrudi, to counter Kadyrov in Chechnya, and this brother has been out of the spotlight for many years and his whereabouts remain unclear. Kadyrov now has near total control over Chechnya. It is questionable if Kadyrov carried out such an assassination since it was so far from Chechnya. But STRATFOR sources in Moscow have said that Kadyrov had ordered a hit on both Ruslan and Sulim in early fall 2008 — and now both have been fulfilled. STRATFOR has also noted Kadyrov's reach extending abroad recently with the assassination of Chechen political refugee and former Kadyrov bodyguard, Umar Israilov, on Jan. 13 in Vienna. The hit in Moscow appears to have been carried out by Kadyrov's own hitmen, although STRAFOR sources said Chechen organized crime in Austria may have carried out the assassination in Vienna. Presently, it is unclear who pulled off the attack in Dubai, though Chechens have infiltrated far across the Middle East with hits (ordered by Moscow and the Chechen clans) seen in Qatar and Turkey in the past few years. Israilov's hit was one of the first occasions that the Kremlin has sanctioned Kadyrov acting outside of Russia — something that Moscow has tried to keep under control until just recently. But Kadyrov has been given greater leeway by the Kremlin to carry out his push for complete control over Chechnya. In return, it seems that the Kremlin has a guarantee that Chechnya will continue to be locked down, and Russia will be able to publicly announce that the decade-long war (its second since the fall of the Soviet Union) is over. The Russian government wants Chechnya and its internal political affairs wrapped up so it can focus on other much larger issues. The Kremlin does not care how Kadyrov ensures that Chechnya will remain under control — as seen in these strings of assassinations — as long as Moscow can now start focusing on other strategic areas to a strengthening Russia.