Basajev, Šamiľ Salmanovič

Basayev, Shamil Salmanovich
Шамиль Салманович Басаев
     
Příjmení:
Surname:
Basajev Basayev
Jméno:
Given Name:
Šamiľ Salmanovič Shamil Salmanovich
Jméno v originále:
Original Name:
Шамиль Салманович Басаев
Fotografie či obrázek:
Photograph or Picture:
Hodnost:
Rank:
brigádny generál Brigadier General
Akademický či vědecký titul:
Academic or Scientific Title:
- -
Šlechtický titul:
Hereditary Title:
- -
Datum, místo narození:
Date and Place of Birth:
14.01.1965 Dyšne Vedeno /
14.01.1965 Dyshne-Vedeno /
Datum, místo úmrtí:
Date and Place of Decease:
10.07.2006 Ingušsko
10.07.2006 Ingushetia
Nejvýznamnější funkce:
(maximálně tři)
Most Important Appointments:
(up to three)
- poľný veliteľ čečenských protiruských bojovníkov - Field Commander anti-Russian Chechen fighters
Jiné významné skutečnosti:
(maximálně tři)
Other Notable Facts:
(up to three)
hodnosť brigádneho generála získal v neuznanej Čečenskej republike Ičkeria The rank of Brigadier General received in the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Související články:
Related Articles:

Zdroje:
Sources:
GALLOVÁ, Carlotta; DE WAAL, Thomas: Čečensko: vítězství a prohry. Themis, Praha, 2000
http://www.chechen.org
http://www.chechenpress.info/index.shtml
http://www.kavkazcenter.com
www.kavkaz-uzel.ru
URL : https://www.valka.cz/Basajev-Samil-Salmanovic-t54915#519901 Version : 0
Shamil Basaev aka Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris




* 14.01.1965, dedina Dyšne-Vedeno (Дышне-Ведено)
+ 10.07.2006, Ingushetia



- field commander of the Chechen army; for many Chechens a hero, for the Russians terrorist No 1




Šamiľ Salmanovič Basajev (Шамиль Салманович Басаев) was born in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in the settlement of Dyshne-Vedeno, located opposite the village of Vedeno, on the other bank of the Chulchulau River. In view of his future hatred of all things Russian, it is interesting to note that his native settlement was founded in the distant past by Russian defectors who, during the Caucasian War, built for Imam Shamil a defensive fortification around the capital of his empire, and built a European-style house for the Imam himself.


In this connection, I will allow myself a little excursion into the period in question. Although Imam Shamil was not an ethnic Chechen but an Avar, he managed to do something extraordinary in the mid-19th century - to create an independent and relatively strong state on the territory of tsarist Russia. This state formation was named the Imamate of Chechnya and Dagestan. The Imamate was a military type of state, based on the Sharia type of law, in which both legislative and executive power belonged exclusively to the person of the Imam. Although this state formation did not have the support of all Chechens, Imam Shamil was able to effectively resist the Russians and even declared holy war on them in 1834! In the Caucasus region, such a holy war is not called jihad, but ghazavat. And although it would seem that against a superpower like Russia a small nation would not stand the slightest chance, the opposite was true. Imam Shamil made perfect use of the fact that Russia was at that time fully occupied by the Crimean War as well as by the war in Anatolia. As a result, he managed to take control of the whole of Chechnya and Dagestan in 1843. Already then, he successfully used the guerrilla method of warfare against the Russian troops, which brought maximum effect in the difficult mountain terrain with minimum casualties.


However, let us return to the present, specifically to the surname Basaev. Since this surname is not only found among Chechens nowadays, but can also be found among Ingush and Ossetians, it is clear that the Basayevs are most likely the descendants of the very Russians who helped the Chechens and were gradually assimilated by them. According to some information, one of Basayev's ancestors was even supposed to be a naib (helper) of Imam Shamil himself. In terms of lineage, Shamil Basaev apparently belonged to one of the most prominent and influential tejpas, the Benoy tejpa, although some sources state that he belonged to the equally prominent and influential Belgatoy tejpa. To clarify - tejp can best be translated into Slovak as clan. Nevertheless, for Chechens he was always just a "descendant of Russians", for which reason he could not enjoy all the benefits of belonging to a clan. All the more pronounced was the trait of relying on his own abilities.


When he came of age, Shamil Basaev entered basic military service in the Soviet army. He served in the air force, specifically in the airfield fire brigade. After completing his full-time service in 1986, together with his brother Shervani, he went to Moscow, where he made three unsuccessful attempts to gain admission to the law institute. As a substitute, he chose the Moscow Economic and Technical Institute (Московский институт инженеров землеустройства). More than his studies, however, he devoted himself to the activities of the Chechen community that was taking shape in Moscow in the late 1980s, and so it is not surprising that in 1988 he was expelled from his studies at the university due to his lack of grades. He did not leave Moscow, however, but became involved in the business of the Chechen diaspora.


In 1989-91 he stayed temporarily in Turkey, specifically in Istanbul, where he attended the Islamic Institute. On his return to Chechnya, he formed a combat group called Vedeno, whose task was to protect the buildings where the congresses of the Conference of the Peoples of the Caucasus and the All-National Congress of the Chechen People were held.


During the attempted coup d'état in the USSR on 19-21 August 1991, Basayev allegedly took part in the defence of the White House in Moscow (he claimed this about himself in an interview) and thus sided with Boris Yeltsin, the President of Russia.


In the chaotic Chechen presidential elections of 27 October 1991, Basayev ran together with Dzhokhar Dudayev. After Dudayev's victory, he formed a reconnaissance and diversionary unit whose aim was to "protect the freedom and interests of the Chechen Republic and its president". After a state of emergency was declared in Chechnya in early November, Basayev staged a protest action - the hijacking of a Tu-154 plane. He and two other companions forced the pilots to fly the plane full of passengers from the Mineral Waters airport (Минеральные Воды) to Turkey, where they surrendered themselves to the local authorities. In exchange for the release of the hostages, Basaev negotiated transportation to Chechnya for himself and his comrades.


The year 1991 is interesting in Basayev's life for other reasons as well. According to most Russian sources available to me, it was in this year that his cooperation with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU (ГРУ - Главное разведывательное управление Генерального штаба ВС ), which Chechen sources deny, however, and label the reports a Russian discrediting campaign. Basayev's cooperation with Russian intelligence was supposed to have begun during the training of a unit he created to engage in the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict. The training was allegedly conducted by Russian officers of the 345th Airborne Troops Regiment, and during the training the Chechen fighters were to be given Russian military ranks for cover. As a result, Shamil Basaev was thus briefly to become a lieutenant in the Russian army (старший лейтееенант - senior lieutenant). Together with him, other future well-known field commanders were to take part in the training - Ruslan Gelajev (Руслан Гелаев), Chamzat Chankarov (Хамзат Ханкаров) and Sayputdin Isaev (Сайпутдин Исаев). Subsequently, Basayev was to receive training at an Afghan Mujahideen base in Pakistan in 1992. At the turn of 1991/92, Basayev's unit, as part of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus (Конфедерация народов Кавказа - КНК) took part in the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict on the Abkhaz side. Basayev proved to be an able commander during the fighting, which made him the self-proclaimed president of Abkhazia Vladislav Ardzinba (ВВладислав Аррдзинба) appointed the deputy defense minister of this unrecognized republic with 80.000 inhabitants. The Georgian side gave a different name to Basayev's achievements - mass atrocities against the civilian Georgian population.


Between April and June 1994, as he himself put it in an interview, he and his brother Shervani received further training at Akhmad Shah-Masuda camp in Afghanistan. In the summer of 1994, he intervened on Dudayev's side against the opposition, with his "Abkhaz Battalion" fighting Labazanov's group in Grozny.


At the beginning of the First Russian-Chechen War (11 December 1994), Basayev commanded about two thousand boyeviks. After the dispersal of his detachment near Vedeno by Russian federal forces (6.6.1995), only about 200-300 people in total remained under his command. It was with this detachment that Shamil Basayev attacked the Russian enemy on his own territory. With 150 fighters, on 14 June 1996 he occupied the town hall in the town of Budyonnovsk (Бууденновск) in the Stavropol Krai. Unable to hold on there, he moved to a hospital where he held 1,200 people hostage for five days. His aim was to gain as much publicity as possible and to rouse Russian society to oppose the war in Chechnya, but at the same time to increase his popularity in Chechnya. His demands were political: stop the war, withdraw Russian troops and negotiate with Dudayev. As President Boris Yeltsin travelled to the G8 summit in Halifax, Prime Minister Chernomyrdin began to negotiate with the fighters. Despite this, the hospital was attacked three times by the Alpha Special Unit, which managed to free some 200 hostages, but 121 others were killed. Sergei Kovalev, a well-known and respected human rights defender, was also involved in the negotiations, and in cooperation with him, Chernomyrdin eventually ordered a ceasefire and guaranteed the Chechens a free return home. They were even provided with a refrigerated truck to transport the bodies of the 58 slain 'fighters for the faith'. Basayev and his fighters, with one hundred and fifty hostages, safely managed to reach the rebel-controlled area, where the hostages were eventually released.


For the operation in Budyonnovsk, every single member of the detachment received the title Hero of Chechnya from President Dzhokhar Dudayev. Three of Basayev's deputies were awarded the Order of Honour of the Nation and Basayev himself was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. From Chechnya's point of view, the awards were well deserved. On the face of it, the suicide attack gave a significant morale boost to the Chechens, but more importantly, the Chechens achieved a ceasefire and forced Russia to negotiate. Conversely, the Russians, who had a unique opportunity to prove that the Chechens were terrorists and to gain the moral upper hand, suffered a defeat due to their own incompetence and insensitivity. However, the negotiations have progressed only slowly and have been complicated by the intransigence of the newly appointed Minister of the Interior and former commander of the troops in Chechnya, General Kulikov. Nor did Dudaev's attitudes contribute to the success of the negotiations. The main problems were the question of the status of Chechnya and the future fate of Shamil Basayev, whom Moscow regarded as a terrorist. When a military agreement was finally signed on 31 July 1995, according to which there was to be a permanent ceasefire and the disarmament of the Chechens at the same time as the withdrawal of Russian troops, one of the concessions made by the Chechen side was a promise to help track down Shamil Basayev, who was responsible for the terrorist act in Budyonnovsk.


However, the ceasefire did not last long, and the previous open fighting was transformed into guerrilla warfare. Chechen commandos ambushed Russian columns and military bases, and in March 1996, separatists led by Basayev even tried to retake Grozny during three days of fighting. Unsuccessfully.


Following the death of President Dudayev, whom Russian forces managed to kill on 21 April 1996 by guiding two air missiles into the signal of his satellite telephone, and the signing of the Khasavyurt peace agreement in August 1996 between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, parliamentary and presidential elections were called in Chechnya in early 1997. Of the thirteen registered presidential candidates, only two - Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basaev - had any realistic hope of success. Maskhadov won the election convincingly, with 59.7% of the population voting for him, while Basayev received 23.5% of the vote. Given Basayev's considerable popularity and in an attempt to keep the field commanders under control, Maskhadov incorporated them into the emerging government structure. Two weeks after the elections, Shamil appointed Basayev as prime minister.


Even the appointment of Basayev as the country's prime minister did not change the fact that Chechnya was not recognised by any state and, although it was formally independent of Russia, its economic development depended on cooperation with Russia. Moreover, Chechnya was economically ruined, threatened with economic collapse and the collapse of the legal system had caused a huge rise in crime. This was compounded by internal political disputes, as a result of which President Maskhadov's position was weakening. Finally, Shamil Basayev called on Maskhadov to resign and dissolve parliament, saying that the country should be governed by an Islamic council of elders. Maskhadov rejected the call and ordered the drafting of a new Chechen constitution, which was to combine democratic elements with Islamic traditions. However, he was unable to fulfil this intention.


On 10 August 1999, some 2 000 Chechen boyeviks led by field commanders Khattab and Basaev attacked neighbouring Dagestan, occupied several settlements and declared an Islamic republic. Although forced to retreat after a concerted Russian counterattack, by attacking part of Russian territory Basayev not only invalidated the Khasavyurt peace agreement but de facto declared war on Russia. When we compare this act of his with the attack on Budyonnovsk, in which he gained a huge advantage for Chechnya in pushing the Russians into negotiations, we can conclude that by attacking Dagestan, Basayev did Chechnya a disservice, because he legitimised Russia's right to intervene militarily against Chechnya. If I were a fan of conspiracy theories, I could state with satisfaction that this act of his fits neatly into the suspicion of his collaboration with Russian intelligence. Since I am not a fan of them, I will confine myself to stating that this attack started the second Russian-Chechen war.


The Russians learned the lessons of the previous campaign in Chechnya, they also evaluated the deployment of NATO troops in the former Yugoslavia, and they were so successful in the fighting that by the end of 1999 their troops had succeeded in taking all the important Chechen towns in the north of the country (Gudermes, Argun, Urus Martan). At the beginning of 2000 they also captured Grozny and advanced further south. It was during the retreat from Grozny in January 2000 that Basayev lost his right shin in a mine explosion.


Because the military superiority of the Russians was overwhelming, Basayev switched to the most insidious form of warfare possible - terrorist attacks against civilians in Russian cities. He claimed responsibility for almost every major terrorist attack of the period - the blowing up of apartment blocks in Moscow and Volgodonsk (1999), the seizure of a theatre complex in Moscow's Dubrovka district (2002), the blowing up of a complex of government buildings in Grozny (December 2002), the blowing up of a military hospital in Mozdok (August 2002), the attack on the Interior Ministry building in Grozny (August 2004) and finally the seizure of a school in Beslan (July 2005).


It is not surprising, therefore, that for the Russians the liquidation of Basayev has become a matter of national importance. After several failed assassinations, on 10 July 2006, a lorry loaded with explosives exploded in Ingushetia, killing Shamil Basaev, then 41, who was travelling in an accompanying passenger car. The Chechen side immediately blames his death on an accident caused by the truck overturning on a rough road and the subsequent explosion of the ammunition. The Russian side responds by declaring that the explosion was the result of a carefully prepared special operation to eliminate a dangerous terrorist. Where is the truth?


Where is the whole truth about Shamil Basayev's life, his motives and who controlled them? Did Allah or the GRU direct his actions? Was his ambition and lust for power behind his actions? Or was it just an attempt by a Chechen Russian to prove to the "true" Chechens that he was as good as, or even better than, them?


Perhaps there is some truth in this article, which is a compilation of currently available Chechen and Russian sources. And maybe both sides are lying and the truth is "in the stars". Let's wait a couple of decades for the declassification of the archives of the Russian or other secret services and (maybe Wink ) we will be wiser.




sources:
GALL, Carlotta; DE WAAL, Thomas: Chechnya: winning and losing. Themis, Prague, 2000
http://www.chechen.org
http://www.chechenpress.info/index.shtml
http://www.kavkazcenter.com
www.kavkaz-uzel.ru
www.jaromirstetina.cz
www.amo.cz
ablecd.wz.cz





URL : https://www.valka.cz/Basajev-Samil-Salmanovic-t54915#202664 Version : 0
Niekoľko kvalitnejších fotiek Šamiľa Basájeva.

source: www.specnaz.ru.
Basajev, Šamiľ Salmanovič - Na fotografii v strede Šamiľ Basajev, vľavo poľný veliteľ Abu al-Walid.

Na fotografii v strede Šamiľ Basajev, vľavo poľný veliteľ Abu al-Walid.
Basajev, Šamiľ Salmanovič - Uprostred s čiernou bradou

Uprostred s čiernou bradou
Basajev, Šamiľ Salmanovič - Basajev uprostred so zdvihnutou pravicou

Basajev uprostred so zdvihnutou pravicou
URL : https://www.valka.cz/Basajev-Samil-Salmanovic-t54915#519810 Version : 0

Diskuse

According to a press release on the Prague Watchdog server, it was only on 27 December 2006 that DNA tests officially confirmed that the body of the "gunman" whose remains were found on 10 June near the village of Ekaževo (Ingushko) belonged to Shamil Basaev.



More on the death of this Chechen soldier :


Colonel-General Gennady Troshev, the commander of the North Caucasus Military District, said in a 2001 press interview that he proposed that federal authorities announce a $1,000,000 reward for killing and capturing Basaev or providing information about him.
(Press release, June 4, 2001)


Source :
http://www.watchdog.cz/
URL : https://www.valka.cz/Basajev-Samil-Salmanovic-t54915#210438 Version : 0
Discussion post Fact post
Attachments

Join us

We believe that there are people with different interests and experiences who could contribute their knowledge and ideas. If you love military history and have experience in historical research, writing articles, editing text, moderating, creating images, graphics or videos, or simply have a desire to contribute to our unique system, you can join us and help us create content that will be interesting and beneficial to other readers.

Find out more