Editor's Note: This is the second installment in a three-part series on the origin and future of the Caucasus Emirate, a consolidation of anti-Russian rebels into a single, Pan-Muslim resistance in the region.
In 1994, before the first Chechen war broke out, Shamil Basayev went to Afghanistan, where he trained briefly with Islamists in the town of Khost. His Islamist instructors were "Afghan Arabs," mujahideen volunteers from Arab countries who had fought the Russians in Afghanistan. Basayev returned to Chechnya, where he would lead Chechen rebels in the retaliatory raid on the Russian town of Budennovsk following the Samashki massacre. Some of the Afghan Arabs also came to Chechnya to join the fight against the Russians in the first Chechen war, and many did not leave when the fighting ended. These fighters included Omar Ibn al Khattab, who went by the nom de guerre "Khattab" and was reportedly close to, and financed by, al Qaeda.
Instead of consolidating their strength after the Russian withdrawal from Chechnya, the Chechens found themselves divided along clan, secular-nationalist and Islamist lines. Islamism was one of the consequences of the first Chechen war, which saw an influx of veteran foreign Islamist fighters to the rebel side. These fighters brought their radical beliefs as well as their guerrilla expertise and began to spread those beliefs in Chechnya and in neighboring republics, along with a small number of proselytizing Chechens of the Wahhabi sect of Islam who had studied in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi sect practices a very strict interpretation of Islam based on the teachings of the 18th century Islamic scholar Muhammad Ibn Abdel-Wahhab. While many Wahhabis practice their religion peacefully, there is an undercurrent in the sect of extremism and ties to terrorism.
The Chechen town of Urus-Martan became a center for hundreds of foreign Wahhabi arrivals from across the Middle East. These Wahhabis would recruit young Chechens to fight for Islam — a prospect that seemed better than remaining unemployed — training them at the Serzhen-Yurt camp, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Urus-Martan. In May 1997, Wahhabis took control of several villages in neighboring Dagestan, prompting Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov to denounce them, along with Saudi Arabia, which was seen as a significant foreign-Wahhabi financier. In December 1998, Wahhabi fighters staged a surprise attack against Russian forces in Buynaksk, and the Chechen war with Russia would resume in August 1999.
The interregnum proved advantageous for Russia. Rival factions weakened the Chechen government of Maskhadov, who was elected in January 1997. With various groups vying for power, a more pronounced split arose between the secular nationalists and the Islamists. This, coupled with traditional clan and business rivalries (the two frequently overlapped), pushed Chechnya slowly toward anarchy. Many Chechens resorted to crime, and kidnapping became a cottage industry. With the proliferation of weapons into the region during the first war with Russia, violence was rampant. All the while, Chechen Islamists and their foreign counterparts grew stronger as they spread their jihadist message to neighboring republics. Ideologically, the struggle in Chechnya was between two competing political currents — secular nationalism and Islamism. Maskhadov wanted to integrate Chechnya into the region economically and rebuild economic relations with Russia. The Islamists in Chechnya dreamed of an enlarged Islamic confederation in the Caucasus, a vision shared by most of Chechnya's anti-government opposition groups, which wanted to eradicate Russia's presence in the region once and for all.
The Second Chechen War
In 1999, the instability in Chechnya was Russia's justification to reassert its force in the region. Watching the internal conflict, and with greater military, economic and political strength, Russia had a renewed confidence in its ability to shape events in Chechnya. It began by increasing the number of troops in Dagestan and the wider region, using the rampant crime, violence and growth of Wahhabi groups as justification. By the onset of the second Chechen war in August 1999, Russia was far more ready for a fight than it was in December 1994.
The Russian Ministry of the Interior had been planning a fight in Chechnya since March 1999, following the abduction of the ministry's special representative to Chechnya, Maj. Gen. Gennady Shpigun, at Grozny's airport (his body would be discovered in southern Chechnya a year later). The Russians had studied the mistakes of the first war and were now ready to correct them. Then, in August 1999, 1,200 to 1,600 members of the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade led by Basayev and Khattab invaded Dagestan, which brought tensions between Moscow and Chechnya once more to the brink. The attack was not exactly greeted with jubilation in Dagestan, but resistance surprised even the Russians, who are suspicious of their country's growing Muslim population and expected far more Dagestanis to join the Islamists than did. Russian reinforcements were sent in, and Russia and Dagestan closed the borders and began a counteroffensive.
On Aug. 31, an explosion at a Moscow shopping center injured 40 people. This was followed by a rash of bombings across Russia, with four major attacks carried out against housing projects in Buynaksk on Sept. 4, Moscow on Sept. 9, and Volgodonsk on Sept. 13 and Sept. 16, leaving 293 people dead and 651 injured. Former Russian President and new Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared Maskhadov's government illegitimate and said Russian forces would advance to the Terek River, which they did by Oct. 5.
Russia's New Strategy
Before the invasion, Russia made critical adjustments in its strategy and tactics. The number of troops deployed was almost double that of the previous invasion, and these were mainly Ministry of the Interior forces, regular army and marine personnel, and special operations troops, not conscripts. All communications were encrypted, and instead of rolling into Grozny in columns, armored forces took the high ground surrounding the city. Russia created a media blockade and only its version of events was reported within Chechnya and to the outside world. Perhaps the most important difference was the condition of the Russian intelligence and security services (the FSB, SVR and GRU), which were unified and stronger — the fragmentation of the services caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union was no longer a factor. The security services were the ones that not only infiltrated the militant groups but also identified the main Chechen weakness: internal divisions between the secular nationalists and Islamists. Russia's consolidation of power was finally paying off. In fact, the entire operation was in the hands of the FSB in February 2001.
Moscow's exploitation of Chechnya's internal divisions gave it victory in the second war. Moscow was looking far past the Terek River when it invaded, and it was able to widen the divisions through bribery, negotiation and exacerbating the concern among Chechens over the terrible humanitarian conditions they faced. There were also latent fears among moderate Muslims and secular nationalists of an outright Islamic Shariah government actually being imposed. This is not to say that all secular nationalists joined Moscow in 1999, but that a split took place and greatly benefited the Russian effort.
Moscow used Bislan Gantemirov, Grozny's former mayor, and his militia as scouts inside Grozny to gain critical intelligence on rebels as well as to fight against them. What Russia achieved in Chechnya was to turn the two most powerful nationalist clans — the Kadyrovs and the Yamadayevs — against the Islamist insurgents and in favor of Russia, installing Kadyrov clan leader (and imam) Akhmad Kadyrov as head of the new pro-Russian Chechen government.
Like the Kadyrovs, the Yamadayevs had taken part in the first Chechen war against the Russians, then switched sides in 1999 due to the well-laid plans of Putin's half-Chechen aide, Vladislav Surkov. The Yamadayev brothers were rewarded with Hero of Russia titles, control over certain militias and security — even seats on the Russian Duma in Moscow. Having two strong Chechen clans on the Kremlin bankroll guaranteed that the pro-Moscow Chechens would fight the Islamists but would themselves be divided. This created a balance within the nationalist camp that could prevent them from forming an alliance and one day threatening Moscow.
Moscow's next move was to create ethnic Chechen military units as part of the Russian armed forces to help fight the war for the Russians. It was these Chechen battalions created in 2003 — Zapad (West) and Vostok (East) — that greatly undermined the anti-Russian insurgents by using Chechen tactics. The Russians still controlled the intelligence flow and ran many military operations, but the Chechen forces allowed the Russian military to start reducing its presence in Chechnya while Ramzan Kadyrov, who succeeded his father's successor, Alu Alkhanov, removed the Yamadayev threat.
Click here to read part one: Origin
Click here to read part three: Consolidation
