This Man was Russia's Bin Laden

They say one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. But Shamil Basayev is definitely the former.

Personally responsible for deaths in their hundreds, his brazen attacks would leave family dinner chairs empty, authorities reeling, and the world on edge. His pageantry led to spectacle at the barrel of a gun, giving him the nickname “Russia’s Bin Laden.”

What started out as nationalist fervour eventually turned to fundamentalist butchery, resulting in multiple of the deadliest terror attacks in all of Russian history.

So what sent Basayev down this path of destruction and radicalisation? How did one man from a Russian backwater briefly liberate his countrymen? And just how much innocent blood was spilled along the way?

Every attack was a signal. One that vowed his people will be free. Whatever it took.

A Chechen Life

The first thing you need to know about Shamil Basayev is that he was a complicated guy from a complicated place. You see, Basayev was a Chechen. For those of you who don’t know, Chechnya is a small region within the Northern Caucuses belonging to Russia.

Chechens have fought on many occasions to try and force the government in Moscow to grant them their independence, and this is a theme that goes back through over 200 years of highly controversial history. All you really need to know is that Chechnya is quite devoutly dedicated to Sunni Islam, and Basayev’s family of Chechens goes back several generations, enduring persecution at the hands of Moscow.

And didn’t little Shamil know it. Basayev was born in 1965, in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno around 55 kilometres (or just over 34 miles) away from the regional capital of Grozny. His family actually hadn’t been back there all that long though, because decades prior during World War Two, Chechens were deported to Kazakhstan on the orders of NKVD leader and all around monster, Lavrentiy Beria. This ethnic cleansing was only reversed in 1957 by Nikita Kruschev, allowing native Chechens to return home.

As a result, Basayev’s father was one of the many thousands of Chechens to return, poverty-stricken with no prospects ready to start their lives all over again. So you can imagine the kind of sentiment towards Moscow that many in Chechnya – including young Shamil – grew up with. The younger Basayev was brought up on tales of the two-century-old Chechen struggle to preserve their distinct culture and religion from expansionist Russian rule. Some reports indicate that Basayev’s own grandfather even fought in a failed attempt to secede from the USSR following the Russian revolution in 1917. You could say then that fighting against the Russian state was literally in his blood.

He would be conscripted into the Soviet military, serving as an airfield firefighter for several years before finding his way to Moscow as a young man even despite his homeland’s disdain for the motherland. He wanted to go to law school but failed to get in, so he settled for land management at the Moscow Engineering Institute, but was kicked out for poor grades. He would find his way selling computers in a Moscow shop alongside another Chechen who eventually would be on the other side of the conflict that came to define him.

There’s not much else that was known about his personal life. We know he was married four times, and that he described his heroes as Abraham Lincoln, Garibaldi, and Che Guevara. You can see a theme here, men who unified their nations and fought to liberate their people – it’s easy to see why a Chechen would idolise such figures.

And all of that is really a lead up to say that at some point in Basayev’s life – and we don’t know exactly when – he first learned the skill he would use for the rest of his life. Fighting. He would put down the Soviet equivalent of the Macintosh and pick up a rifle, and once he did… he never looked back.

And after his sparse early life, Basayev’s story becomes incredibly complicated. The topic of his time on this earth is a veritable swamp of propaganda, mythmaking, and retrospective moral laundering. A key thing to remember is that the most recent wars that the Chechens fought against Russia – the ones that Basayev would soon be involved in – were not even 30 years ago. This is as fresh in Chechens’ collective memories as it is in their history books.

So both Chechnya and its ruling government in Moscow have a vested interest in ensuring interpretations of the story favour their own side’s agenda. So there are a few times throughout Basayev’s life that competing narratives cloud what actually happened. There are a lot of lenses through which to tell this story, and where there’s clashes, we’ll do our best to present them to you and let you decide.

When the Soviet Union collapsed into chaos in 1990, everyone wanted their independence, with modern nations knowing that the Soviets could no longer stop them from creating bespoke homelands for their people. But Chechnya was a little different. The Soviet Union was a federation of soviet republics, and even though it acted as a single entity, those republics were distinct.

This gave them a legal path to independence, and access to widespread international recognition when the Soviet Union later fell apart. Chechnya, by comparison, was incorporated into Russia itself prior to the advent of the Soviet Union, so when the USSR collapsed – despite everyone else getting their independence – Chechnya was still legally a part of pre-Soviet Russia, and so their attempts to do the same were seen as illegitimate rebellion by the Russian state. International jurisprudence is weird like that.

Believe it or not though, Basayev started his fighting life out on Moscow’s side. In 1991 communist hardliners attempted to stage a coup against newly-appointed Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin, and Basayev was reportedly close to the action. He allegedly joined Yeltsin’s supporters on the barricades around the Russian White House in central Moscow, having armed himself with hand grenades. Months later however, an event took place that would change Basayev’s life forever when then Chechen nationalist Dzhokar Dudayev used the chaos of the Soviet Union’s dissolution to declare Chechen independence.

Whilst Russia couldn’t stop the soviet republics from going independent, it saw Chechnya as a domestic matter. And that only meant one thing. There would be war.

So Basayev rushed back to his homeland’s capital – Grozny. It was time for him to emulate his heroes.

I wonder if he ever thought that he would become the villain.

Becoming a Terrorist

Back when Grozny broke away from Moscow in 1991, Basayev appeared to be more of a soldier than a radical. Take an interview he did in 1996 for example where he explained his logic behind joining the secessionist movement, quote:

“We understood that Russia wouldn’t let Chechnya go so easily, that freedom was precious and had to be paid for in blood.”

Brutally practical. The Russians, however, didn’t see it that way. They spent the next several years trying to manage, avoid, or postpone the Chechnya problem. After all, during the 1990s it was just one crisis amongst many for the new Russian Federation.

But the lack of action emboldened Basayev, sending him down a dark path. Whilst still a soldier, he was known to have a flare for the dramatic, which would soon allow him to straddle the infamously blurry line between freedom fighter and terrorist. Whilst the Russians were still trying to figure out how to contain the Chechnya problem without the use of significant military resources, the Chechens set about getting as many eyes on their cause as possible. And that meant one thing was certain.

Mass casualties.

On November the 9th 1991, Basayev and two other high-ranking Chechen separatists hijacked a Russian Aeroflot Tu-154 and redirected it to Ankara. This was in order to get President Boris Yeltsin to lift the state of emergency he had ordered when Chechnya broke away, and they threatened to blow up the aircraft if their demands weren’t met.

Thankfully it didn’t get that far. After the plane landed in Turkey the passengers were eventually freed, at which point the Chechens surrendered and held a press conference; knowing that the government in Ankara – as the self-proclaimed global protector of Muslims – would allow their Turkic brothers safe passage back to Chechnya. Nobody was physically hurt, and it was the kind of stunt that drew a lot of attention from the international community.

It showcased a few key elements of this conflict: One; that spectacular, headline-grabbing violence was a part of Basayev’s repertoire from early on. Two; it deeply embarrassed the government in Moscow, as it showed they were not handling the problem whatsoever, and it made them look soft for allowing the separatists to get away scot-free. But for now, there was no open conflict with the Russian military, and if a full-on war wasn’t happening here, Basayev would go to where he could find one.

The first place he found himself was in Nagorno Karabakh in 1992 before he would move on to Abkhazia in its separatist movement against the caucus nation of Georgia. Both struggles Basayev saw as part of a wider North Caucasian fight against outside control. Ironically though this actually meant that on his specific issue both Russia and Chechnya were on the same side. Geopolitics is weird.

But it might have been more than a one off, as it was here that Basayev would later be accused of working with the Russian military intelligence service the GRU. The newspaper Versiya published a file from the Russian foreign military agency on both Basayev and his brother, which stated that quote:

”… both Chechen terrorists were named as regular agents of the military intelligence organization.”

Not only that, but in a July 2020 interview, the former Russian Federal Security Service chief Sergei Stepashin admitted that Basayev cooperated with military intelligence while fighting against Georgian forces in Abkhazia. According to some he even was reportedly trained by Russian forces, and was accused of committing war crimes during the conflict. But this is one of those moments where competing narratives cloud the truth and we don’t know for sure what occurred. Basayev himself always denied the claims (as a Chechen that’s not exactly a surprise, I wouldn’t be putting that one on my LinkedIn either) whilst Chechens call the claims a deliberate attempt to discredit Basayev’s reputation among his native supporters.

There’s also some claims that linked Basayev to the Pakistani intelligence service otherwise known as the ISI. The ISI has long had an addiction to funding radical Islamic terror groups in order to destabilise other nations, and they especially liked using nations like Afghanistan as a breeding ground for extremists. Not only did Basayev and a number of Chechens seem to receive some training in Pakistan itself, but Chechens reportedly even fought alongside the Taliban to gain valuable combat experience. Again, Basayev was using regional Islamic loyalties to his advantage.

But such a mystery tour of the various conflict zones around Asia would ultimately be cut short in late 1994. The Russians had finally woken up, and after realising funding loyalist militias, armoured columns consisting of 40,000 soldiers would soon march on Grozny in an attempt to wrangle control back from the separatists. Basayev for his part, reportedly directly organised the defence of the city.

The war was bad tempered and brutal, and in particular whilst Russian forces would eventually capture the city after several months, it only did so whilst sustaining massive casualties. Around 2,000 Russian soldiers officially lost their lives taking Grozny alone, and Russian generals state around 30,000 civilians were killed as the city was bombarded into oblivion.

The Chechens, overwhelmed by Russian manpower, retreated into the mountains where they could fight more asymmetrically and the Russians struggled to dislodge them. There was a lot of criticism about the war due to the bloodbath, and both sides accused the other of war crimes. The upper estimates of the fighting suggest as many as 120,000 civilians were killed, 300,000 were wounded, and half a million were displaced over the course of the conflict.

And it’s where the fighting got personal for Basayev. As in 1995, 11 of those roughly 120,000 – members of Basayev’s family – were killed by Russian strikes, including his wife and two of his children.

This likely only entrenched Basayev’s increasing fanaticism. The Russians had taken his home, his capital, and his family. They had taken everything. So the gloves were about to come off.

From here is when we start to see a distinct evolution in Basayev towards a strategy that – whilst aiming to harm Russian military targets – paid little mind to civilian collateral damage. His aim was to bring the war home to the Russians so they would pressure their government into ending the fighting. In June of 1995, Basayev and over 100 men dressed as Russian service members drove military trucks through Dagestan towards the Russian region of Stavropol Krai, they were pretending to be Russian soldiers bringing supplies back from the front.

They got through more than 20 checkpoints with no issues, paying bribes where they could, before getting stopped outside of Budyonnovsk – about 90 miles or 144 kilometres from the Chechen border. Unable to afford another bribe, they were taken to a local police station for an inspection… and all hell broke loose as the insurgents came out firing.

The Chechens captured the police headquarters and city hall, but when they were pushed back by Russian reinforcements, they found refuge in the city’s hospital… which was filled with patients and staff. Some state that the hospital was never the true target, claiming instead that the convoy was aiming to storm a chemical factory that manufactured explosives. Either way with the writing on the wall, Basayev called for the hospital to be seized, with all 1,000 hostages trapped inside.

Over the next several days the tension rose as negotiations played out and the Russian authorities tried to avoid bloodshed. On several occasions the Russians attempted and failed to storm the hospital, resulting in the deaths of over 150 people and well over 400 injuries.

Basayev himself negotiated the release of the hostages, as well as safe passage for himself and his men back to Chechnya, all on live Russian television with then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin also agreeing to halt Russian military action in Chechnya and begin peace negotiations.

The whole feat made Basayev a national hero in Chechnya, seen as a soldier taking the fight to the occupiers in the region’s capital. From the Russian perspective it was a total capitulation to the separatists, and the second time in four years that Basayev had embarrassed the Kremlin publicly. Speaking on the affair in that 1996 interview, Basayev justified his actions, stating quote:

“They say Budyonnovsk is terror. But isn’t it terror that Russian aircraft bomb our villages every day?”

The hostage crisis was a watershed moment in the Chechen conflict, and marked the point of no return for Basayev. Twice he had posed a danger to Russian civilians, and twice he had gotten away with it.

Another shocking revelation came when several packages containing radioactive caesium-137 stolen from the Budyonnovsk hospital were hidden around Moscow in November of 1995, a dramatic escalation which was announced by Basayev on Russian television. More radical Chechen forces had called for launching a nuclear attack on Russia for some time, and it forced emergency teams to sweep the city, Geiger counters firmly held in sweaty palms.

The Russians tried to play down the whole affair but it was another catastrophic security failure. If that caesium had been left nearby a person for some time, they could have developed various cancers or radiation sickness. Conversely if it encountered water it may have reacted extremely violently, but thankfully nobody was harmed. There were many similar security incidents that Basayev would be involved in over the years, and whilst we can’t mention them all, this one stood out as particularly sinister.

Come August of 1996, and Basayev played a key role in recapturing Grozny from the Russians, an event that would bring an end to the first Chechen War via the signing of a ceasefire. This cemented his role as a key authority figure among Chechens. This wasn’t just some random terrorist or soldier; he had taken on the Russians head on, and won.

For all intents and purposes the war was considered a resounding win for Chechnya, who were able to keep hold of their newly acquired autonomy, all the while the Russians were seen as disorganised and incompetent. This was an important point in Basayev’s legacy, showing him at his height as a respected battlefield commander, even after all he had already done.

Civilian life was difficult for Basayev – after all, what does a man who has known nothing but fighting do when the fighting ends? Well he tried to go into mainstream politics. He ran in Chechnya’s 1997 presidential election but lost to eventual winner Aslan Maskhadov. He would later serve as the Prime Minister and would even have formal control over the government on several occasions, but he just couldn’t get alongside the slower life, and Chechnya was starting to fall into internal chaos.

He had to do something.

In 1998 he established a network of military officers who ended up becoming rival warlords. We say “rival” warlords because Basayev also became one himself, with he and his men being accused of kidnappings, corruption, and stealing oil from the Chechen republic’s wells during the so-called peaceful period. His work in the Chechen government ended around this time too because he had grown increasingly frustrated with then-president Maskhadov for being too soft on Moscow.

And this marked Basayev’s final transformation occurred from soldier to radical terrorist. He chose to align himself with fundamentalist Islamists who sought to establish an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus through jihad. Acting on this would severely undermine the president’s authority. One of these Islamists was a foreigner named Ibn-Al-Khattab – a native Saudi and a pan-Islamic militant – who heavily influenced Basayev towards war.

Basayev stated at the time quote:

“We are ready, and want to wage war according to international law, it is even to our advantage to do so in terms of protecting the civilian population. But unlike President Maskhadov, we do not want to be the only side to espouse those tactics.”

By this point Basayev didn’t even consider himself a Chechen nationalist, instead seemingly choosing to pursue change for the wider North Caucus region through radical Islam. Nobody knows for sure what prompted Basayev’s increasingly sharp turn towards religious radicalisation, whether it was the influence of Khattab, the drive to preserve the culture and religion of the Northern Caucuses, a belief that the Chechen government was incompetent, or a mix of all three.

Others would argue that he was never an Islamic fundamentalist, and mainly just wanted to use Islam as a political and military lever to construct a new Chechen state. After all, there were always a lot of very dedicated individuals out there willing to sacrifice their lives for Allah. Perhaps he saw the Islamists as having a better chance at keeping the Russians out, much like they had done during the Soviet Union’s war with Afghanistan.

Either way, it didn’t much affect Basayev’s politics which appeared to be a mishmash of populism and social Islam. It wasn’t solely militant Chechen separatism, and it wasn’t just Islamic fundamentalism either, it was something altogether new. We’ve called it Basayev-ism.

An example of this was his promise that – under his Islamic presidency – each man would get a privatisation voucher worth $10,000 dollars. He even claimed that he would build a Disneyland-style park in the centre of Grozny for the children. How kind of him.

But all of that would have to wait, as in 1999, the Second Chechen War erupted – just as bad tempered as the first – and just as littered with abuses on all sides. Basayev moralised his brutal tactics by claiming the Russians did the same, quote:

“It is the enemy who sets the limits to our actions, and we are free to resort to the methods and actions that the enemy first employed against us.”

Convinced that his jihad would liberate the North Caucuses and its people, he took 2,000 men and launched an incursion into the neighbouring and majority Islamic Russian region of Dagestan. This appears to be the moment where Basayev had well and truly jumped the shark. His methods were impactful, but ultimately short-sighted and alienated more moderate voices in the Chechen separatist movement. They had done it, they had pushed their occupiers out just three years prior, why risk poking the Russian bear? It was viewed by many in the international community as a war of aggression, conducted by a butcher and a warlord. The Kremlin ran with it, and newly elected Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used it as an excuse to act, framing the conflict as little more than a battle in the ongoing global fight against Islamic terrorism – not an independence movement. And that wasn’t all, Chechen separatists were also accused of bombing several apartments in Moscow in 1999 killing 300 people. It was a highly contentious terror attack that has seen finger-pointing from all sides ever since, but no matter who did it though, Moscow wasn’t going to let a good crisis go to waste. And soon they would come back down on the Chechens. Hard.

Basayev did play a role in the resistance during the Second Chechen War. Even if he no longer had as many friends on the moderate side of the movement, many Chechens still supported him. And let’s face it, even if he had helped start the conflict, they still needed him to help fight in it.

The war would claim the lives of between 50,000 and 300,000 people depending on whose accounts you believe, which most of the casualties being on the Russian side. Thousands of civilians would be slaughtered in the fighting as people argued over who was a legitimate target and who was an insurgent. They died all the same.

Grozny was razed to the ground, with levels of destruction being compared to levels during World War Two when cities like Hamburg and Dresden were all but obliterated. By 2003, the UN called Grozny the most destroyed city on earth. The Russians drove the Chechens out of their capital once again in February of 2000, and during the retreat Basayev stepped on a landmine, blowing off his foot.

He was able to turn his newly acquired disability into a propaganda victory by later claiming he could still walk 50 kilometres (that’s just over 31 miles) a night. It became part of his myth and endeared him to his supporters.

Freshly turfed out of his home’s capital city once again – just with one foot fewer than when he entered it – Basayev knew he had been in this position before. To get what he wanted, all he had to do was spill a little Russian blood; the worst of which was yet to come.

Russia’s Bin Laden

The reign of terror that Basayev brought to Russia saw him referred to as Russia’s most wanted man, with other titles like “Russia’s Bin Laden” generating particular infamy. Though it is important to recognise that whilst Basayev was certainly an Islamic terrorist like Bin Laden, he didn’t command anywhere near the same level of international fanatical appeal. Regardless, it still remains a useful shorthand to describe him amongst the most deadly terrorists in Russian history.

His next major attack was orchestrated in 2002. The Moscow Theatre hostage crisis. This one was straight out of Basayev’s playbook. Take a bunch of hostages, and then negotiate for the end to Russian aggression just like in the previous war.

Except it didn’t quite go like that this time. When dozens of Islamist forces first stormed the theatre, it was a total spectacle. 912 hostages were taken as a massive amount of explosives were brought into the theatre. Hostages reported that the radicals had mines, hand grenades, and improvised explosive devices were deployed throughout the theatre, including one large bomb in the middle of the theatre.

Meanwhile, Islamist women dressed in niqabs wore explosive vests and sat amongst the hostages. They called them “black widows.” One slip from the Russian authorities and it would be a catastrophe.

The Russian’s plan was to introduce a so-called “sleeping gas” into the theatre, incapacitating the terrorists before special forces would move in. Whilst the gas they used wasn’t publicly identified at first, it was later found to be a form of aerosolised carfentanil – an opioid that is 100 times stronger than fentanyl and 10,000 times stronger than morphine. The gas killed a high number of the terrorists and hostages alike, and the Russians storming in armed to the teeth did the rest.

In the end 132 hostages died and over 700 were injured. It remains one of the deadliest and most infamous terror attacks in Russian history. And yet it’s still only the second worst one that Basayev had ever ordered.

He was openly calling himself a terrorist at this point, as if the explosive vests hadn’t confirmed that already.

By the early to mid-2000s, even analysts with a degree of sympathy towards the longstanding Chechen plight saw Basayev as a dangerous agitator. From the outside perspective he appeared to have co-opted the Chechen movement, changing it from a national separatist struggle into a jihadist campaign, civilians be damned. Even the United States officially designated him as a terrorist in 2003 owing to his leadership of the “Riyadus-Salikhin martyr brigade,” his links to other jihadist entities in the region, and his alleged travel to Afghanistan.

Basayev didn’t care however, he continued to launch and claim responsibility for a string of attacks all across the North Caucuses, including a Grozny car bombing of a Chechen government building in December of 2003, but it would be 2004 which would constitute the height of Basayev’s brutal campaign. He claimed responsibility for the assassination of then pro-Moscow Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov in a bombing that killed seven other people.

One of his most well-planned attacks came in 2004 also, when hundreds of armed men stormed the Russian city of Nazran in a particularly brutal assault which he helped personally lead. Ingushetia is the region located on Chechnya’s western flank, and the strike targeted 15 official buildings within its main city. The interior ministry building and train station were burned to the ground.

Basayev’s forces captured so many weapons that they filled two large trucks with them, and Basayev himself made a joke that there were too many for them to carry them all back. More than 60 police officers and other authorities lost their lives alongside 25 civilians – a comparatively low death toll by Basayev’s standards but the violence was as calculated as it was brutal. Individuals were stopped in their cars to be identified before some were dragged out of their vehicles and executed at point blank range.

It was yet another embarrassing security lapse for the Kremlin.

But the worst was yet to come. Basayev’s most infamous attack. The deadliest in modern Russian history.

Beslan.

September the first, 2004 was the first day of the Russian school year. In North Ossetia, around 95 kilometres or 60 miles west of Grozny sat the sleepy town of Beslan – and within it, was the creatively named school number one. Basayev’s forces stormed in early, taking over 1,100 hostages, 777 of which were school children.

Most of the hostages were forced into the gymnasium, where explosives were rigged throughout the building, with radicals wearing vests and standing on dead man’s switches just for good measure. The terrorists killed several hostages early on, and left those captured without adequate food and water for three days, with some being forced to clean blood from the floors and dump bodies out of windows. Despite the Moscow Theatre crisis just two years beforehand Russian forces were incredibly unprepared.

Authorities at first vastly undercounted the number of hostages at around 350, a designation which would have disastrous consequences. Only a small number of ambulances were present, and a large crowd of local volunteer militiamen were gathering, making rescue efforts more complicated.

The gymnasium was rigged with hanging IEDs and tripwires everywhere, and the trigger-happy terrorists threatened to blow up the whole school if the building was stormed, further claiming they would kill dozens of hostages for every militant killed. The windows were quickly smashed too; so the gas wouldn’t work again. The Russians were conflicted on what to do. The HQ that was set up by civil authorities wanted a peaceful resolution, whilst the military HQ set up by the FSB prepared an assault on the building.

The civilian one was laid with all the responsibility of course, while the military one actually made all of the decisions. The hostages continued to be mistreated and negotiations stalled over the coming days. It wasn’t known at the time, but Basayev had demands written on a note that was handed to the Russians during this time, who kept it a secret.

Basayev’s terms were simple. A formal independence for Chechnya in line with the Russian commonwealth. It also stated that whilst Chechen separatists took no part in the Moscow apartment bombings, they were willing to take public responsibility for them if needed. The Russians falsely announced that the terrorists had no demands instead.

Time was running out; the hostages were deteriorating from being forced to stand in the hot gymnasium with little food and water, and some were starting to pass out from exhaustion. The authorities needed to act.

And then, the worst would happen, we know there was an explosion inside the gym – whether it was caused by the Russians or Basayev’s men is contested – and soon a firefight would break out as Russian security forces raided the school, with the hostages all still inside. This house of learning would devolve into a chaotic warzone, with hundreds of children caught in the middle. Some were so weak that they were barely able to flee as tanks, armoured personnel carriers, civilian militias, and Russian special forces descended on the school through a hail of gunfire.

Fighting continued for hours until the Russians finally took back control and the militants were all either dead or captured. The cost of the peace? 334 dead civilians, 186 of which were children, and 700 injured.

Basayev would later boast the siege only cost 8,000 euros, having just carried out the deadliest massacre in modern Russian history.

However, some sources state that Basayev was rather shaken by the whole thing. He was surprised by Moscow’s response to the school’s seizure. He did not believe that President Vladimir Putin would sacrifice the lives of innocent children – especially children from Ossetia, a region that had always been a Russian ally in the North Caucuses. Basayev believed that Moscow would comply with the hostage takers’ demands and just get out of Chechnya like they did last time.

He was very wrong, and even expressed regret for everything that happened. He later said of the siege, quote:

“I thought I was doing the Russians a favour by showing them the way out of a blind alley.”

A chilling insight into the mind of a depraved fanatical terrorist, given how many innocents he endangered.

Reports of what happened next with Basayev are mixed. Some state that he started to realise that these hostage takings were becoming increasingly counterproductive in terms of actually getting the outcomes they wanted. Others suggest he was banned from taking hostages and civilian-targeted operations when made second in command of the sect.

However conflicting reports suggest that if there were any restrictions on him – self-imposed or otherwise – they didn’t stop him allegedly conducting an attack on police facilities in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria and leaving 139 people dead in late 2005. Could anything bring this senseless violence to an end?

Well, yes and no. Because in July of 2006, Basayev’s reign of terror would finally come to a close. And again the stories here are contested.

Some narratives state that Basayev was taking part in an arms’ deal when a mine he was holding blew up in his hands, detonating other explosives and killing him by accident. But others have reported that it was a Russian special forces raid that was used to take him out. Regardless of what really happened, Basayev’s story ended there, but the second Chechen war didn’t until 2009.

Losing him was a major blow to the insurgency, but would not kill it overnight. And his loss was not as heavily felt as it perhaps once might have been – and the movement would continue without him – however it was a sliding doors moment for the conflict as a whole. The Russian public positively received the news; this was one of the most dangerous men in Russian history.

At the very least his attacks were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, with thousands upon thousands of lives completely changed forever.

And in a way the only thing we can feel for him is pity. Not because he’s worthy of it, he isn’t, but because this seemed to be a man who just never fit in anywhere else in society. He sucked at school, never really had any other jobs, and fighting, homeland, and religion were all he knew.

He was a violent and confused man with a violent and confusing life, meandering from one vicious cause to another, and leaving nothing but death where he stood. Even if some of the causes he fought for could be argued as noble in principle, the river of blood he left behind thoroughly poisoned that premise. And so you had this man – was he a salesman, a politician, a warlord, a soldier, a national separatist, or a radical Islamist?

I don’t think even he truly knew, and as each previous iteration failed to deliver the victory he wanted, the only answer he could find was to increase the bloodshed.

And if nothing else, we should all be grateful he can’t do that anymore.

Key Takeaways

• Shamil Basayev began as a Chechen nationalist seeking independence from Russia, evolving into a radical Islamist terrorist.
• Basayev’s tactics included high-profile hostage-takings and attacks on Russian civilians to pressure the government.
• The Beslan school siege in 2004, resulting in 334 deaths, was Basayev’s deadliest and most infamous attack.
• Basayev’s actions were driven by a desire to liberate Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus region.
• Basayev’s reign of terror ended in 2006, with his death attributed to either an accident or a Russian special forces raid.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Shamil Basayev?

Shamil Basayev was a Chechen nationalist and Islamist who became one of Russia’s most notorious terrorists. He was responsible for numerous deadly attacks and was often referred to as ‘Russia’s Bin Laden.‘

What was Basayev’s background?

Basayev was born in 1965 in the village of Dyshne-Vedeno, Chechnya. His family had a history of persecution by Moscow, and he grew up with a strong anti-Russian sentiment. He served in the Soviet military and later became involved in the Chechen separatist movement.

What was Basayev’s role in the Chechen conflicts?

Basayev played a significant role in both the First and Second Chechen Wars. He was involved in the defense of Grozny and later became a key figure in the Chechen separatist movement, advocating for an independent Islamic state in the North Caucasus.

What were some of Basayev’s most notorious attacks?

Basayev was responsible for several high-profile attacks, including the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis in 1995, the Moscow Theatre hostage crisis in 2002, and the Beslan school siege in 2004, which was one of the deadliest terrorist acts in modern Russian history.

How did Basayev’s tactics evolve over time?

Initially, Basayev focused on military targets, but as the conflicts progressed, he began to target civilians more frequently. His aim was to bring the war home to the Russians and pressure their government into ending the fighting.

What was Basayev’s relationship with other militant groups?

Basayev had ties with various militant groups, including the Taliban and other Islamist organizations. He was also accused of cooperating with Russian military intelligence during the Abkhazia conflict, although these claims are disputed.

How did Basayev’s actions impact the Chechen separatist movement?

Basayev’s actions initially made him a hero among many Chechens, but his increasing radicalization and targeting of civilians alienated more moderate voices within the movement. His actions also provided the Russian government with justification to crack down on the separatists.

What was the outcome of the Beslan school siege?

The Beslan school siege resulted in the deaths of 334 civilians, including 186 children, and injured 700 others. It was one of the deadliest terrorist acts in modern Russian history and had a profound impact on Russian society and politics.

How did Basayev’s reign of terror end?

Basayev’s reign of terror ended in July 2006 when he was killed, reportedly during an arms deal gone wrong. Some reports suggest it was a Russian special forces raid that took him out. His death was a significant blow to the Chechen insurgency.

What was the international response to Basayev’s actions?

The United States officially designated Basayev as a terrorist in 2003 due to his leadership of the ‘Riyadus-Salikhin martyr brigade’ and his links to other jihadist entities in the region. His actions were widely condemned by the international community.

Sources

• Original Into the Shadows video: This Man was Russia’s Bin Laden
• Hero image source by Yuriy Ivanov / Юрий Иванов / openverse, by-sa.

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