Basayev, Shamil
Chechen terrorist
First Deputy Prime Minister, Government of Ichkeria

Shamil Basayev was born in 1965 in the village of Vedeno, Vedensky district of Chechnya. Basayev spent his childhood in Vedeno, completed his secondary education in 1982. Following secondary school, he tried to enter the law faculty of Moscow State University, but failed the entrance exams three times.

Served in the Soviet Air Force.

1987 - accepted to the Moscow Engineering Institute, but was was dismissed a year later for poor academic performance

1988-1991 - worked in Moscow

early 1991 - joined the Confederation of the Peoples of Caucasus army

August 1991 -  participated in the defense of the Russian Parliament building against the Communist coup in Moscow

October 1991 - entered his candidacy for the presidency of Chechnya

November 1991 - participated in hijacking a Tu-154 passenger aircraft from the airport in Mineralniye Vodi. The aircraft was taken to Antalya, Turkey where Basayev and his accomplices surrendered to the Turkish authorities and were later allowed to go to Chechnya

1992 - Basayev headed a volunteer brigade of Chechens who went to fight for Abkhazia in its war of independence from Georgia

Summer 1994 - joined the armed conflict in Chechnya on the side of Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev

June 14, 1995 - Basayev and his troops seized hostages in a hospital in Budennovsk (Stavropol region). Basayev demanded that the Russian government stop the war in Chechnya and begin peaceful negotiations with Dzhokhar Dudayev. After several unsuccessful attempts to storm the hospital, Russian authorities made compromises leading to a temporary cessation in military operations in Chechnya. Basayev returned to Chechnya a national hero. He became one of the first Chechen commanders awarded the "Kioman Syi” (the Honor of the Nation), the highest honor in Chechnya. Aslan Maskhadov and Ruslan Gelayev were also honored with the Kioman Syi.

April 1996 - Elected leader of rebel forces in Chechnya

1997 - Lost the Chechen presidency to Aslan Maskhadov, but received the rank of division general.

1998 - Resigned all ties to the government of Chechnya and became the head of the independent government of Ichkeria

1999 - Basayev and his troops invaded Dagestan, precipitating the "second war" in Chechnya

Winter 2000 - Lost his leg while escaping from Russian-controlled Grozny. 

2002 - left the government of Ichkeria under pressure from Mashkadov for being too violent. He practised Wahabism, or "Salaf as-Salih", a devout form of Sunni Islam, and was thought to have had strong contacts with Al Quaida.

2005 - Named First Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Ichkeria by Abdul-Khalim Saidullayev, who was named Prime Minister following Mashkadov's death.

Shamil Basayev has continued to fight for Chechen independence, and his group has claimed responsibility for the "Nord-Ost" or Dubrovka hostage-taking at a Moscow theater on October 26, 2002 and the tragic siege at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia Sep. 1-3, 2004. In July 2006, shortly before his death, he offered congratulations to the killers of four Russian diplomats working in Baghdad.

See Russia profile Articles:

Russia's Chechen Resistance, A Council of Foreign Relations Paper on Basayev, by Elisabeth Smick, July 18th 2006
Very Complicated Frontier, Sergei Markedonov, Russia Profile, May 17th 2006
New Means, Same End, Sergei Markedonov, Russia Profile, 20th June 2006.
The Chance to Make a Choice, Ilya Maskadov, Russia Profile, 24th Nov 2005
"No Political Solution" Special Comment, Ilya Maskadov, 14th Sept, 2004.
 

last updated July 10th 2006 (ic)