Elimination of militants in Chechnya. Notes from a militant about the Chechen campaign

MASKHADOV Aslan (Khalid) Alievich Elected in 1997, President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Born on September 21, 1951 in Kazakhstan. In 1957, together with his parents, he returned from Kazakhstan to his homeland, to the village of Zebir-Yurt, Nadterechny district of Chechnya. In 1972 he graduated from the Tbilisi Higher Artillery School and was sent to Far East. He went through all the steps of the army hierarchical ladder from platoon commander to division chief of staff.

In 1981 he graduated from the Leningrad Artillery Academy named after. M.I.Kalinina. After graduating from the academy, he was sent to the Central Group of Forces in Hungary, where he served as a division commander, then as a regiment commander. Lithuania follows Hungary: commander of a self-propelled regiment artillery installations, chief of staff missile forces and artillery of the garrison of the city of Vilnius in Lithuania, deputy commander of the seventh division in the Baltic Military District.

In January 1990, during protests by supporters of Lithuanian independence, Maskhadov was in Vilnius.

Since 1991 - chief Civil Defense Chechen Republic, Deputy Chief of the Main Staff of the Supreme Council of the Chechen Republic.

In 1992, Colonel Maskhadov retired from the Russian army and took the post of first deputy chief of the Main Staff of the Chechen Republic.

Since March 1994 - Chief of the Main Staff of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic.

From December 1994 to January 1995, he headed the defense of the presidential palace in Grozny.

In the spring of 1995, Aslan Maskhadov led the military operations of the armed formations from the headquarters in Nozhai-Yurt.

In June 1995, he headed the headquarters of Dudayev’s formations in Dargo.

In August-October 1995, he headed a group of military representatives of the Dudayev delegation at the Russian-Chechen negotiations.

In August 1996, he represented Chechen separatists in negotiations with Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed

On October 17, 1996, he was appointed to the post of Prime Minister of the coalition government of Chechnya with the wording “for the transition period.”

In December 1996, in accordance with the election law, he resigned from official posts - prime minister of the coalition government, chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, deputy commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in order to have the right to run for the post of president of Chechnya.

Since July 1998, he served as acting prime minister of Chechnya, combining this position with the post of president.

In December 1998, “field commanders” Shamil Basayev, Salman Raduev and Khunkar Israpilov tried to challenge Maskhadov’s constitutional powers under the pretext of his “pro-Russian position.” The “Council of Commanders of Chechnya”, headed by them, demanded that the Supreme Sharia Court remove Maskhadov from office. The Sharia court suggested that Maskhadov unilaterally sever relations with Russia. However, the court did not find sufficient grounds to remove the President of the Chechen Republic from office, although he was found guilty of recruiting leadership positions persons who “collaborated with the occupation regime”.
Destroyed on March 8, 2005 by Russian FSB special forces in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt, Grozny district.

BARAEV Arbi. He was suspected of organizing the kidnappings of FSB officers Gribov and Lebedinsky, the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian President in Chechnya Vlasov, Red Cross employees, as well as the murder of four citizens of Great Britain and New Zealand (Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey, Rudolf Pestchi and Stanley Shaw). The Ministry of Internal Affairs put Baraev on the federal wanted list in a criminal case regarding the abduction in Chechnya of NTV television journalists - Masyuk, Mordyukov, Olchev and OPT television journalists - Bogatyrev and Chernyaev. Total on it personal account the death of about two hundred Russians - military personnel and civilians.

On June 23-24, 2001, in the ancestral village of Alkhan-Kala and Kulary, a special combined detachment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB conducted a special operation to eliminate a detachment of militants from Arbi Barayev. 15 militants and Barayev himself were killed.

BARAEV Movsar, nephew of Arbi Barayev. Movsar received his first baptism of fire in the summer of 1998 in Gudermes, when the Barayevites, together with the Urus-Martan Wahhabis, clashed with fighters from the detachment of the Yamadayev brothers. Then Movsar was wounded.

After entering Chechnya federal troops Arbi Barayev appointed his nephew as commander of a sabotage detachment and sent him to Argun. In the summer of 2001, when Arbi Barayev was killed in the village of Alkhan-Kala, Grozny rural district, Movsar proclaimed himself instead of his uncle as emir of the Alkhan-Kala jamaat. Organized several attacks on federal convoys and a series of explosions in Grozny, Urus-Martan and Gudermes.

In October 2002, terrorists led by Movsar Barayev seized the building of the House of Culture of the State Bearing Plant on Melnikova Street (Theater Center on Dubrovka), during the musical "Nord-Ost". Spectators and actors (up to 1000 people) were taken hostage. On October 26, the hostages were released, Movsar Barayev and 43 terrorists were killed.

SULEIMENOV Movsan. Nephew of Arbi Barayev. Killed on August 25, 2001 in the city of Argun during a special operation employees of the Russian FSB Directorate for Chechnya. The operation was carried out with the aim of establishing the exact location and detention of Suleimenov. However, during the operation, Movsan Suleimenov and three other mid-level commanders offered armed resistance. As a result, they were destroyed.

ABU Umar. Native Saudi Arabia. One of Khattab's most famous assistants. Mine explosives expert. Mined the approaches to Grozny in 1995. Participated in organizing explosions in Buinaksk in 1998, and was wounded in the explosion. Organized an explosion in Volgograd on May 31, 2000, in which 2 people were killed and 12 were injured.

Abu Umar trained almost all the organizers of the explosions in Chechnya and the North Caucasus.

In addition to preparing terrorist attacks, Abu-Umar dealt with financing issues

militants, including the transfer of mercenaries to Chechnya through the channels of one of

international Islamic organizations.

Destroyed on July 11, 2001 in the village of Mayrup, Shalinsky district, during a special operation by the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Emir Ibn Al Khattab. Professional terrorist, one of the most irreconcilable militants in Chechnya.

Some of the most “well-known” operations carried out under the leadership or with the direct participation of Khattab and his militants include:

Terrorist attack in the city of Budennovsk (70 people were allocated from Khattab’s detachment, there were no losses among them);

Providing a “corridor” for S. Raduev’s gang to exit the village. Pervomayskoe - an operation prepared and carried out personally by Khattab to destroy the column of the 245th motorized rifle regiment near the village. Yaryshmards;

Direct participation in the preparation and attack on Grozny in August 1996.

Terrorist attack in Buinaksk on December 22, 1997. During an armed attack on a military unit in Buinaksk, he was wounded in his right shoulder.

RADUEV Salman. From April 1996 to June 1997, Raduev was the commander of the armed unit "General Dudayev's Army".

In 1996-1997, Salman Raduev repeatedly took responsibility for terrorist attacks committed on Russian territory and made threats against Russia.

In 1998, he took responsibility for the assassination attempt on Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. He also took responsibility for the explosions at train stations in Armavir and Pyatigorsk. The Raduevskaya gang was engaged in robberies on the railways; it was guilty of theft of public funds in the amount of 600 - 700 thousand rubles, intended to pay salaries to teachers in the Chechen Republic.

On March 12, 2000, he was captured in the village of Novogroznensky during a special operation by FSB officers.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has charged Salman Raduev under 18 articles of the Criminal Code of Russia (including “terrorism”, “murder”, “banditry”). The sentence is life imprisonment.

Died on December 14, 2002. Diagnosis: hemorrhagic vasculitis (incoagulability of blood). He was buried on December 17 at the city cemetery of Solikamsk (Perm region).

ATGERIEV Turpal-Ali. Former employee of the 21st company of the Grozny traffic police. During the hostilities, he was the commander of the Novogroznensky regiment, which, together with Salman Raduev, participated in the Kizlyar and May Day events.

By this fact The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case under Art. 77 (banditry), Art. 126 (hostage-taking) and Art. 213-3, part 3 (terrorism). Put on the federal wanted list.

On December 25, 2002, the Supreme Court of Dagestan sentenced Atgeriev to 15 years in prison for participating in the attack on the Dagestan city of Kizlyar in January 1996. Atgeriev was found guilty of terrorism, organizing illegal armed groups, kidnapping and hostage-taking, and robbery.

Died on August 18, 2002. The cause of death was leukemia. In addition, it was established that Atgeriev had a stroke.

GELAEV Ruslan (Khamzat). Former regiment commander special purpose"BORZ" AF CRI, lieutenant colonel of the army of Ichkeria.

During combat operations - commander of the Shatoevsky garrison, commander of the "Abkhaz battalion". Gelayev’s formation consisted of eight hundred to nine hundred well-armed militants, including about fifty snipers from Lithuania and ten to fifteen snipers from Estonia. The so-called special-purpose regiment was stationed in the areas of Sharoy, Itum-Kale, and Khalkina.

In 2002, he announced his intention to obtain the post of President of Ichkeria; supported him former manager Dudayev's foreign intelligence service, the famous criminal oil businessman Khozhi Nukhaev.

On August 20, 2002, Ruslan Gelayev’s gang attempted an armed transition from the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia through the territory North Ossetia and Ingushetia to Chechnya.

On March 1, 2004, the territorial department "Makhachkala" of the North Caucasus branch of the border service department distributed reports of the death of Ruslan Gelayev in the mountains of Dagestan (reports of his death were heard more than once).

MUNAEV Isa. Chechen field commander. He led detachments operating in the Chechen capital, and was appointed military commandant of the city of Grozny by Aslan Maskhadov in early 1999.

Killed on October 1, 2000 during a military clash in the Stapropromyslovsky district of Grozny (according to the press center of the United Group Russian troops in Chechnya, 2000).

MOVSAEV Abu. Deputy Minister of Sharia Security of Ichkeria.

After the attack on Budennovsk (1995), they began to claim that Abu Movsaev was one of the organizers of the action. After Budennovsk he received the rank of brigadier general. In 1996 - July 1997 - Head of the State Security Department of Ichkeria. During the armed conflict in Chechnya, for some time in 1996 he served as chief of the main headquarters of the Chechen formations.

KARIEV (KORIEV) Magomed. Chechen field commander.

Until September 1998, Kariev was deputy head of the Security Service of Ichkeria. He was then appointed head of the 6th Department of the Ministry of Sharia Security, responsible for the fight against organized crime.

Kariev was involved in kidnapping and hostage-taking for ransom.

He was killed on May 22, 2001 by several shots at the door of the apartment he rented in Baku under the guise of a refugee.

TSAGARAEV Magomad. One of the leaders of Chechen gangs. Tsagarayev was Movzan Akhmadov’s deputy and directly led military operations; was Khattab's closest confidant.

In March 2001, Tsagaraev was wounded, but managed to escape and sneak abroad. At the beginning of July 2001, he returned to Chechnya and organized gang groups in Grozny to carry out terrorist attacks.

MALIK Abdul. Famous field commander. He was part of the inner circle of the leaders of illegal armed groups in Chechnya, Emir Khattab and Shamil Basayev. Killed on August 13, 2001 during a special operation in the Vedeno region of the Chechen Republic.

KHAIHAROEV Ruslan. Famous Chechen field commander. During the war in Chechnya (1994-1996) he commanded detachments of defenders of the village of Bamut and the southeastern front of the Chechen army.

After 1996, Khaikharoev had extensive connections in the criminal world of the North Caucasus, controlled two types of criminal business: the transportation of hostages from Ingushetia and North Ossetia to the Chechen Republic, as well as the smuggling of petroleum products. Former employee of Dudayev's personal security.

It is assumed that he was involved in the disappearance without a trace of journalists of the Nevskoe Vremya newspaper Maxim Shablin and Felix Titov, and also ordered two explosions in Moscow trolleybuses on July 11 and 12, 1996. Accused Russian Service Security in organizing the explosion of an intercity passenger bus in Nalchik.

The organizer of the abduction on May 1, 1998 of the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in Chechnya, Valentin Vlasov (this fact was established by Russian law enforcement agencies).

He died on September 8, 1999 in the district hospital of the city of Urus-Martan, Chechen Republic. He died from wounds received on the night of August 23-24, 1999 during the fighting in the Botlikh region of Dagestan (he fought as part of Arbi Barayev’s units).

According to another version, Khaikharoev was mortally wounded by fellow villagers who were blood relatives of Bamut. The news of his death was confirmed by the press service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

KHACHUKAEV Khizir. Brigadier General, Deputy of Ruslan Gelayev. Commanded the South-Eastern Defense Sector in Grozny. Demoted to private by Maskhadov for participating in negotiations with Akhmad Kadyrov and Vladimir Bokovikov in Nazran. Destroyed on February 15, 2002 during an operation in the Shali region of Chechnya.

UMALATOV Adam. Nickname - "Tehran". One of the leaders of Chechen militants. He was a member of Khattab's gang. Killed on November 5, 2001 as a result of an operation carried out by special forces.

IRISKHANOV Shamil. An influential field commander from Basayev's inner circle. Together with Basayev, he took part in the raid on Budenovsk and the taking of hostages in a city hospital there in 1995. He led a detachment of about 100 militants in the summer of 2001, after his older brother, the so-called Brigadier General Khizir IRISKHANOV, Basayev’s first deputy, was killed in a special operation. “For the operation” in Budenovsk, Dzhokhar Dudayev awarded the Iriskhanov brothers the highest order of “Ichkeria” - “Honor of the Nation”.

SALTAMIRZAEV Adam. An influential member of illegal armed groups. He was the emir (spiritual leader) of the Wahhabis of the village of Mesker-Yurt. Nickname - "Black Adam". Destroyed on May 28, 2002 as a result of a special operation by Federal forces in the Shali region of Chechnya. During an attempt to be detained in Mesker-Yurt, he resisted and was killed during a shootout.

Rizvan AKHMADOV. Field commander, nickname "Dadu". He was a member of the so-called “Majlis-ul-Shura of the Mujahideen of the Caucasus.”

Akhmadov took command of his brother Ramzan's militant detachment in February 2001 after his liquidation. This detachment operated in Grozny, in the Grozny rural, Urus-Martan and Shalinsky districts, relying on accomplices in the ranks of the Chechen riot police operating in Grozny. On January 10, 2001, it was a group of militants subordinate to Dadu who took the representative hostage international organization Doctors Without Borders by Kenneth Gluck.

ABDUKHAJIEV Aslanbek. One of the leaders of Chechen militants, Shamil Basayev’s deputy for intelligence and sabotage work. Nickname - "Big Aslanbek". As part of the Basayev and Raduev gangs he took active participation in armed attacks on the cities of Budennovsk and Kizlyar. During the reign of Maskhadov, he was the military commandant of the Shali region of Chechnya. In Basayev’s bandit formation, he personally developed plans for sabotage and terrorist activities.

Since the day of the attack on Budennovsk, he has been on the federal wanted list.

On August 26, 2002, employees of the operational group of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Shali region and one of the SOBR detachments, together with soldiers from the military commandant’s office of the Shali region, carried out an operation in the regional center of Shali to detain a militant. When detained, he offered armed resistance and was killed.

Demiev Adlan. Leader of a gang. Involved in a series of sabotage and terrorist acts on the territory of Chechnya.

Liquidated on February 18, 2003 by federal forces of Chechnya as a result of a counter-terrorist operation carried out in the city of Argun.

After being blocked by a unit federal forces Demiev resisted and tried to escape in a car. However, it was destroyed by retaliatory fire from federal forces. When examining the dead man, a PM pistol, grenades, radios and a fake passport were found.

BATAEV Khamzat. A well-known field commander, considered the “commander of the Bamut direction” of the resistance of Chechen militants. He was killed in March 2000 in the village of Komsomolskoye. (This was reported by the group commander internal troops Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in Chechnya, General Mikhail Lagunets).

First great luck The decapitation of Chechen separatism after the murder of Dzhokhar Dudayev was the capture of terrorist No. 2 Salman Raduev, who was arrested by FSB representatives on the territory of Chechnya in March 2000. Raduev became widely known in 1996, after on January 9, under his leadership, militants attacked the Dagestan city of Kizlyar. True, the “laurels of fame” in Kizlyar went to Raduev “by accident.” At the last stage, he replaced the wounded field commander Khunkarpasha Israpilov, who was the leader of the operation.

The capture of Raduev was carried out masterfully by counterintelligence officers and in such a top-secrecy regime that the bandit “did not expect anything and was shocked,” said FSB director Nikolai Patrushev. According to some reports, Raduev was “tied up” the moment he left his shelter “out of need.” There is a version that Raduev was betrayed by an agent who promised to sell him a large batch of weapons cheaply.

December 25, 2001 Supreme Court Dagestan found Raduev guilty on all counts except “organizing illegal armed groups.” The demands of the state prosecutor - Vladimir Ustinov - were fulfilled, and Salman Raduev was sentenced to life imprisonment. Raduev served his sentence in the Solikamsk penitentiary, in the famous White Swan colony.

In December 2002, Raduev began to complain about his health. On December 6, he developed bruising under his left eye and abdominal pain. A few days later, Raduev became worse, and on December 10, GUIN doctors decided to place him in a prison hospital in a separate ward. Raduev was in the hospital and died on December 14 at 5.30 am. The forensic medical report on death states the following: “DIC syndrome, multiple hemorrhages, retroperitoneal hematoma, hemorrhage in the brain and left eye.”

Raduev’s body was buried in the general Solikamsk cemetery.

In April 2002, it became known that the field commander Khattab, who was known as an ideologist and organizer of terrorist activities, was killed in Chechnya. He was liquidated as a result of an “undercover combat operation” by the FSB back in March 2002. The top-secret operation to destroy Khattab was prepared for almost a year. According to the FSB, Khattab was poisoned by one of his confidants. The death of a terrorist was one of the most serious blows for militants, since after the liquidation of Khattab the entire system of financing gangs in Chechnya was disrupted.

In June 2001, in Chechnya, as a result of a special operation, the leader of one of the most combat-ready units of Chechen militants, Arbi Barayev, was killed. Along with him, 17 people from his inner circle were destroyed. Large quantity militants were captured. Barayev was identified by his relatives. The special operation was carried out in the area of ​​Barayev’s native village of Ermolovka for six days - from June 19 to 24. During the operation, which was carried out by the regional operational headquarters with the involvement of special forces of the FSB and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, in particular the Vityaz group, one Russian serviceman was killed and six were injured. After Barayev was mortally wounded, the militants carried his body into one of the houses and covered it with bricks in the hope that the federal forces would not find him. However, with the help of a search dog, Barayev's body was discovered.

In November 2003, FSB representatives officially admitted that one of the leaders of the Chechen militants, the Arab terrorist Abu al-Walid, was killed on April 14. According to intelligence services, on April 13, information appeared about a detachment of militants who, together with several Arab mercenaries, stopped in the forest between Ishkha-Yurt and Alleroy. In this area there was immediately hit from helicopters, and special forces shot at the bandits’ camp with grenade launchers and flamethrowers. On April 17, soldiers combed the area between Ishkhoy-Yurt and Meskety, and approximately 3-4 kilometers from these villages in the forest they found six killed militants. They were all able to be identified - they turned out to be Chechens. A kilometer from those six corpses they found a dead Arab. With him, in particular, they found a map of the area made from a satellite and a satellite navigator for moving around the area. The body was badly burned. In April, al-Walid's body could not be identified. The intelligence services did not have the terrorist’s fingerprints, his relatives did not respond to investigators’ requests, and the detained militants who met him could not say with certainty that the body was his. All doubts disappeared only in November.

On February 13, 2004, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, whom Chechen separatists declared the president of Ichkeria after the death of Dzhokhar Dudayev, was killed in Qatar. Yandarbiev's car was blown up in the Qatari capital Doha. In this case, two people from his escort died. The separatist leader himself was seriously injured and died some time later in the hospital. Yandarbiev has lived in Qatar for the past three years and has been on the international wanted list all this time as the organizer of the attack on Dagestan. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office demanded his extradition from Qatar.

The Qatari special services immediately started talking about a Russian trace in the murder of Yandarbiev, and already on February 19, three employees of the Russian embassy were arrested on suspicion of committing a terrorist attack. One of them, who is the first secretary of the embassy and has diplomatic status, was released and expelled from the country, while the other two were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Qatari court, and the court concluded that the order to liquidate Yandarbiev was given by top officials of the Russian leadership. Moscow denied the accusations in every possible way, and Russian diplomats did everything possible to take the unlucky bombers home as soon as possible.

They were sentenced to life imprisonment, which under Qatari law means a 25-year prison term, which could later be reduced to 10 years. A month after the trial, an agreement was reached that the convicted Russians would be taken to their homeland, where they would serve their sentences. The return of Russian intelligence officers actually took place; Anatoly Yablochkov and Vasily Pugachev flew to Russia on a special flight of the Rossiya State Transport Company in December 2004.

In March 2004, it became known about the death of an equally odious militant leader, Ruslan Gelayev, who in May 2002 was again appointed by Aslan Maskhadov as commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ichkeria and restored to the rank of “brigadier general.” True, he was killed not as a result of a special operation by the special services, but in a banal shootout with border guards. Gelayev was killed by a border guard consisting of only two people in the mountains of Dagestan on the Avaro-Kakheti road leading to Georgia. At the same time, the border guards themselves were killed in the shootout. The field commander's corpse was found in the snow a hundred meters from the bodies of the border guards. This happened, apparently, on Sunday (February 28, 2004). A day later, Gelayev’s body was taken to Makhachkala and identified by previously arrested militants.

Thus, only one “odious militant” remains alive among the major Chechen leaders - Shamil Basayev.

Alexander Alyabyev

During the Chechen campaigns, the Barayev clan became widely known for trafficking in kidnapped and captured people. Some experts who have studied the actions of these criminals are inclined to believe that the Barayevs were even more active in this type of activity than directly in military clashes with federal troops.

It is believed that the militants of the Islamic regiment "Jamaad", led by Arbi Barayev, in Chechnya, among others, kidnapped the special representative of the Russian President Vlasov, Major General Shpigun, many Russian officers and journalists, as well as four British citizens and one New Zealander. They did not stand on ceremony with the prisoners - when Barayev’s militants were not satisfied with the results of the hostage ransom negotiations, four foreigners had their heads cut off and thrown onto the road.

Arbi Barayev was truly a scumbag, because he always wanted to commit atrocities on his own, uncontrolled by the leadership of the self-proclaimed Ichkeria. In the late 90s, Aslan Maskhadov stripped him of the rank of brigadier general for arbitrariness; in response, Barayev tried to kill Maskhadov himself. Arbi Baraev was also despised by field officer Ruslan Gelayev, whose relatives were killed by Baraev’s people.

This is how General Troshev, one of the leaders of the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, characterizes A. Baraev in his book “My War. Chechen diary of a trench general":

“... He was a unique person in his own way: in five years he rose through career ladder from traffic police foreman to brigadier general (analogous to our rank of lieutenant general)! It’s time to be included in the Guinness Book of Records. Moreover, the 27-year-old Chechen owes such a rapid ascent not to his brilliant mind, talents or valor of heart, but to the human blood he shed: since January 1995, he has personally tortured more than two hundred people! Moreover, with the same sadistic sophistication he mocked a Russian priest, an Ingush policeman, a Dagestani builder, and the subjects of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain...”

Arbi Barayev's nephew Movsar participated in both Chechen campaigns, initially in a supporting role. In the second war, on the orders of Shamil Basayev, Movsar Barayev led a sabotage-terrorist detachment, which in October 2002 seized the House of Culture of Moscow Bearing OJSC on Dubrovka, taking over 900 people hostage. According to various sources, as a result of this terrorist attack, from 130 to 174 hostages died, 37 terrorists led by Movsar Barayev were killed by FSB special forces.

Currently full is underway development of new combat manuals for the Russian Armed Forces. In this regard, I would like to bring up for discussion a rather interesting document that came into my hands during a business trip to the Chechen Republic. This is a letter from a mercenary fighter who fought in Chechnya. He addresses not just anyone, but the general Russian Army. Of course, some thoughts expressed by a former member of illegal armed groups can be questioned. But on the whole he is right. We do not always take into account the experience of combat operations and continue to suffer losses. It's a pity. Perhaps this letter, while new combat regulations have not yet been approved, will help some commanders avoid unnecessary bloodshed. The letter is published with virtually no editing. Only spelling errors have been corrected.
- Citizen General! I can say that I am a former fighter. But first of all, I am a former SA senior sergeant who was thrown onto the battlefield in the DRA a few weeks before (as I later learned) the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan.
So, with three fractures of limbs, ribs, and a severe concussion, at the age of 27 I became a gray-haired Muslim. I was “sheltered” by a Khazarian who once lived in the USSR and knew a little Russian. He walked me out. When I began to understand Pashto a little, I learned that the war in Afghanistan was over, the USSR was gone, and so on.
Soon I became a member of his family, but this did not last long. With the death of Najib, everything changed. First, my father-in-law did not return from a trip to Pakistan. By that time we had moved from near Kandahar to Kunduz. And when I returned to my house with spare parts at night, the neighbor’s boy told me in confidence that they were asking and looking for me. Two days later the Taliban took me too. So I became a “voluntary” mercenary fighter.
There was a war in Chechnya - the first. People like me, Arab-Chechens, began to be trained for jihad in Chechnya. They were prepared in camps near Mazar-i-Sharif, then sent to Kandahar. Among us there were Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, many Jordanians, and so on.
After preparation, the final instructions were given by NATO instructors. They transferred us to Turkey, where there are camps for transfer, rest and treatment of “Chechens”. They said that highly qualified doctors were also former Soviet citizens.
We were transported across the state border by railway. They drove us non-stop across Georgia. There we were given Russian passports. In Georgia we were treated like heroes. We went through acclimatization, but then the first war in Chechnya ended.
They continued to prepare us. It started in the camp combat training- mountain. Then they transported weapons to Chechnya - through Azerbaijan, Dagestan, the Argun Gorge, the Pankisi Gorge and through Ingushetia.
Soon they started talking about a new war. Europe and the USA gave the go-ahead and guaranteed political support. The Chechens should have started. The Ingush were ready to support them. The final preparations began - studying the region, entering it, bases, warehouses (we did many of them ourselves), issued uniforms, satellite phones. The Chechen-NATO command wanted to forestall events. They were afraid that before the start of hostilities the borders with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ingushetia and Dagestan would be closed. The strike was expected along the Terek. Department of the plain part. Destruction enveloping the outer ring and the inner mesh - with a general seizure, a general search of buildings, farmsteads, etc. But no one did this. Then they expected that, having narrowed the outer ring along the Terek with captured crossings, dividing three directions along the ridges, the Russian Federation would move along the gorges to the already tightly closed border. But that didn't happen either. Apparently, our generals, excuse the freethinking, neither in the DRA nor in Chechnya have ever learned to fight in the mountains, especially not in open battle, but with gangs that know the terrain well, are well armed, and most importantly, knowledgeable. Observation and reconnaissance are carried out by absolutely everyone - women, children, who are ready to die for the praise of a Wahhabi - he is a horseman!!!
Even on the way to Chechnya, I decided that at the slightest opportunity I would return home. I took almost all my savings out of Afghanistan and hoped that 11 thousand dollars would be enough for me.
Back in Georgia, I was appointed assistant field commander. With the beginning of the second war, our group was first abandoned near Gudermes, then we entered Shali. Many of the gang were locals. They received money for the fight and went home. You search, and he sits, waits for a signal, and bargains for food from the rear for money received in battle - dry rations, stewed meat, and sometimes ammunition “for self-defense from bandits.”
I was in battles, but I didn’t kill. Mostly he carried out the wounded and dead. After one battle they tried to pursue us, and then he slapped the Arab cashier, and before dawn he left through the Kharami to Shamilka. Then for 250 bucks he sailed to Kazakhstan, then moved to Bishkek. Called himself a refugee. After working a little, I settled in and went to Alma-Ata. My colleagues lived there, and I hoped to find them. I even met Afghans, they helped me.
This is all good, but the main thing is about the tactics of both sides:
1. The bandits know the tactics of the Soviet army well, starting with the Benderaites. NATO analysts studied it, summarized it and gave us instructions back at the bases. They know and directly say that “the Russians do not study or take these issues into account,” but it’s a pity, it’s very bad.
2. The bandits know that the Russian Army is not prepared for night operations. Neither soldiers nor officers are trained to operate at night, and there is no material support. In the first war through battle formations Whole gangs of 200-300 people passed through. They know that the Russian Army does not have PSNR (ground reconnaissance radars), no night vision devices, or silent firing devices. And if so, the bandits carry out all their attacks and prepare them at night - the Russians sleep. During the day, bandits carry out forays only if they are well prepared and for sure, but otherwise they are serving time, resting, collecting information is carried out, as I already said, by children and women, especially from among the “victims,” that is, those whose husband, brother, son, etc. have already been killed. etc.
These children are undergoing intense ideological indoctrination, after which they may even commit self-sacrifice (jihad, ghazavat). And the ambushes come out at dawn. At the appointed time or on a signal - from the cache the weapon and forward. They put up “beacons” - they stand on the road or on a high-rise, from where everything can be seen. How our troops appeared and left is a signal. Almost all field commanders have satellite radio stations. Data received from NATO bases in Turkey from satellites is immediately transmitted to field workers, and they know when which column went where, what is being done in the places of deployment. Indicate the direction of exit from the battle, etc. All movements are controlled. As the instructors said, the Russians do not carry out radio control and direction finding, and Yeltsin “helped” them with this by destroying the KGB.
3. Why the huge losses of our troops on the march? Because you transport living corpses in a car, that is, under an awning. Remove awnings from vehicles in combat areas. Turn the fighters to face the enemy. Seat people facing the board, benches in the middle. The weapon is at the ready, and not like firewood, at random. The bandits' tactics are an ambush with a two-echelon arrangement: the 1st echelon opens fire first. In
The 2nd are snipers. Having killed the airborne ones, they blocked the exit, and no one will get out from under the awning, but if they try, they finish off the 1st echelon. Under the awning, people, as if in a bag, do not see who is shooting and from where. And they themselves cannot shoot. By the time we turn around, we’re ready.
Next: the first echelon shoots one at a time: one shoots, the second reloads - continuous fire is created and the effect of “many bandits”, etc. As a rule, this spreads fear and panic. As soon as the ammunition, 2-3 magazines, is consumed, the 1st echelon retreats, carries out the dead and wounded, and the 2nd echelon finishes off and covers the retreat. Therefore, it seems that there were many militants, and before they knew it, there were no bandits, and if there were, then they were 70-100 meters away, and there was not a single corpse on the battlefield.
In each echelon, carriers are appointed, who do not shoot so much as monitor the battle and immediately pull out the wounded and dead. They appoint strong men. And if they had pursued the gang after the battle, there would have been corpses, and the gang would not have left. But sometimes there is no one left to pursue. Everyone is resting in the back under the awning. That's all the tactics.
4. Taking hostages and prisoners. There are instructions for this too. It says to watch out for "wet chicken." This is what bazaar lovers are called. Since the rear doesn’t work, take a careless, careless scoundrel with a weapon “by the back” and back to the market, get lost in the crowd. And they were like that. This was the same in Afghanistan. Here is your experience, father commanders.
5. Command error - and the bandits were afraid of it. It is necessary to immediately conduct a population census along with the “cleansing operations.” We came to the village and wrote down in each house how many were where, and along the way, through the remains of documents in the administrations and through neighbors, it was necessary to clarify the actual situation in each yard. Control - the police or the same troops came to the village and checked - there were no men. Here is a list of a ready-made gang. New ones have arrived - who are you, “brothers”, and where will you be from? Inspecting them and searching the house - where did he hide the gun?!
Any departure and arrival is through registration with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He joined the gang - fuck him! Wait - come - spanked. To do this, it was necessary to assign to each unit settlements and establish control over any movement, especially at night with night vision devices, and systematic shooting of bandits going out to gather. No one else will come out at night, no one will come from the gang.
Half of the bandits feed themselves at home thanks to this, so there are fewer problems with food. The rest is decided by our rear people, selling products on the sly. And if there was a zone of responsibility, the army commander, the military and the Ministry of Internal Affairs would control the situation through mutual efforts, and the appearance of any new one would be taken away (look for Khattab, Basayev and others from their wives, they are there in winter).
And again, don't disperse the gangs. You plant them like seedlings in a garden. Example: in the gang I was in, we were once told to urgently go out and destroy a convoy. But the informants gave inaccurate information (the observer had a walkie-talkie about the exit of the first cars, he reported and left, the rest were delayed, apparently). So the battalion hit the gang, “scattered” and “defeated”. Yeah! Each subgroup always has the task of retreating to the general gathering area of ​​the gang. And if they chased us, there was almost “0” ammunition - they fired. You need to drag two wounded and a dead man. If they hadn’t gone far, of course they would have abandoned everyone and then, perhaps, they would have left.
And so in Ingushetia, in a former sanatorium, the wounded were treated - and back into service. This is the result of “dispersion” - sowing - after 1 month the gang, rested, is assembled. This is why warlords remain alive and elusive for so long. There would be rapid response teams, with dogs, in a helicopter, and urgently to the area of ​​​​the collision with the support of the “beaten” - that is, those who were fired upon, and in pursuit. There are none.

The list includes the most notable and significant operations of the FSB in its entire history. There are no cases about catching spies and others few known operations, due to the fact that from the mid-90s to the present time, the main direction of the FSB is North Caucasus. It is the elimination and capture of key opponents in this region that has a decisive influence on the development of the situation in the entire direction. Places are distributed according to the importance of the object of the operation or the situation as a whole.

10. Detention of Magas Ali Musaevich Taziev (formerly known as Akhmed Evloev; call sign and nickname - “Magas”) - terrorist, active participant in the separatist movement in the North Caucasus in the 1990s - 2000s, Ingush field commander, since 2007 year - commander (supreme amir) of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed “Caucasian Emirate”. He was second in the leadership hierarchy of the Caucasus Emirate after Doku Umarov. It turned out that since 2007, Ali Taziev, under the name Gorbakov, lived in one of the private houses in the suburbs of the Ingush city of Malgobek. He introduced himself to his neighbors as a migrant from Chechnya. He behaved quietly and inconspicuously and did not arouse any suspicion. The operation to capture “Magas” began six months before his arrest. Three times he was targeted by snipers, but the order was to take him alive. On the night of June 9, 2010, the house was surrounded by FSB special forces. At the time of his arrest, Taziev did not have time to resist (according to the Kavkaz Center - due to the fact that he was poisoned), the FSB officers did not suffer any losses

9. Elimination of Abu Hafs al-Urdani Abu Hafs al-Urdani - Jordanian terrorist, commander of a detachment of foreign volunteers in Chechnya, took part in battles on the side of the separatists during the First and Second Russian-Chechen Wars. After the death of Abu al-Walid, Abu Hafs replaced him as amir of foreign fighters and coordinator of financial flows from abroad. He led the attack of militants on the village. The attacks of the Shali region in the summer of 2004, as well as many smaller militant attacks. Abu Hafs was valued as a military strategist by Aslan Maskhadov, who planned operations with him. On November 26, 2006, Abu Hafs and four other militants were blocked in one of the private houses in Khasavyurt (Dagestan). As a result of the storming of the house by FSB special forces, all the militants were killed.

8. Elimination of Abu Dzeit Abu Dzeit (known as Little Omar, Abu Omar of Kuwait, Hussein, Moor) is an international terrorist, an emissary of the Al-Qaeda organization in the North Caucasus, the organizer of terrorist attacks in Bosnia and the Caucasus, including Beslan. According to some reports, he personally met with Osama bin Laden. In 2002, he was invited to Chechnya by one of the al-Qaeda emissaries, Abu Haws. He was a demolition instructor in one of the terrorist camps. Then he was sent by Abu Haws' representative in Georgia, to Ingushetia. In 2004, Moor became the leader of an al-Qaeda cell in Ingushetia. He died during an operation to eliminate militants on February 16, 2005 in the Nazran region of Ingushetia.

7. Elimination of Abu-Kuteib Abu-Kuteib is a terrorist, one of Khattab’s associates. He was a member of the Majlisul Shura of Ichkeria and was responsible for propaganda support for the activities of gangs, and was also given the exclusive right to post on the Internet information transmitted by groups of Arab mercenaries from Chechnya. It was he who, in March 2000, organized an attack on a convoy in Zhani-Vedeno, as a result of which 42 riot policemen from Perm were killed. He was one of the organizers of the militant invasion of Ingushetia. On July 1, 2004, he was blocked in the city of Malgobek and, after many hours of fighting, he blew up a “martyr’s belt” on himself.

6. Liquidation of Aslan Maskhadov Aslan Maskhadov - military and statesman unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI). In the early 1990s he participated in the creation armed forces ChRI and led the separatists' military operations against the federal forces. On March 8, 2005, Maskhadov was killed during a special operation by the FSB in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt (Grozny rural district), where he was hiding in underground bunker under the house of one of the distant relatives. During the assault, Maskhadov resisted, and the special forces blew up the device, causing shock wave whose house was dilapidated.

5. Elimination of Arbi Barayev Arbi Barayev, a participant in the separatist movement in Chechnya in the 1990s, supported the creation of a “Sharia” state in Chechnya. After the end of the first Chechen war, in 1997-1999, he became known as a terrorist and bandit, a murderer and the leader of a gang of slave traders and kidnappers, at whose hands more than a hundred people suffered in Chechnya and neighboring regions. The liquidation of the Chechen field commander Arbi Barayev was a consequence special operation of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, which took place from June 19 to 24 in the village of Alkhan-Kala. During the operation, Arbi Barayev and 17 militants from his inner circle were killed, many were captured, and federal forces lost one person killed during the operation.

4. Liquidation of Dzhokhar Dudayev Dzhokhar Dudayev - Chechen military and politician, leader of the Chechen national liberation movement of the 1990s, first president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. In the past - major general of aviation, the only Chechen general in Soviet Army. According to data from Russian sources, by the beginning of the first Chechen campaign, Dudayev commanded about 15 thousand soldiers, 42 tanks, 66 infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 123 guns, 40 anti-aircraft systems, 260 training aircraft, so the advance of the federal forces was accompanied by serious resistance from the Chechen militias and Dudayev’s guards. On the evening of April 21, 1996, Russian special services located the signal from Dudayev’s satellite phone in the area of ​​the village of Gekhi-Chu, 30 km from Grozny. 2 Su-25 attack aircraft with homing missiles were lifted into the air. Dzhokhar Dudayev died from a rocket explosion while talking on the phone with Russian deputy Konstantin Borov.

3. Elimination of Khattab Amir ibn al-Khattab - field commander, terrorist originally from Saudi Arabia, one of the leaders armed forces self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria on the territory Russian Federation in 1995-2002. He was an experienced and well-trained terrorist, mastered all types of small arms. He understood the mine demolition business. He personally trained the suicide bombers subordinate to him. Organized foreign financing for the purchase of ammunition and the construction of militant training camps on the territory of Chechnya. Khattab was killed in an unconventional way: a messenger delivered a message to the Arab, which contained a horse dose potent poison. Khattab opened the envelope and died very quickly after that. His bodyguards could not understand what was really happening.

2. Elimination of Shamilya Basayev Shamil Basayev is an active participant in military operations in Chechnya, one of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI) in 1995-2006. Organized a number of terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation. He was included in the lists of terrorists of the UN, the US State Department and the European Union. According to official data from the FSB, Basayev and his accomplices were killed during the explosion of a KamAZ truck loaded with explosives in the Nazran region of Ingushetia. This explosion was the result of a carefully planned special operation, which became possible thanks to the operational work of the Russian special services carried out abroad. “Operational positions were created abroad, primarily in those countries in which weapons were collected and subsequently delivered to Russia to carry out terrorist attacks,” Mr. Patrushev said, clarifying that Basayev and his accomplices were going to carry out major terrorist attack to put political pressure on the Russian leadership during the G8 summit.

1. Capture of "Nord-Ost" Terrorist attack on Dubrovka, also referred to as "Nord-Ost" - a terrorist attack on Dubrovka in Moscow, which lasted from October 23 to 26, 2002, during which a group of armed militants led by Movsar Barayev captured and held hostages from among the spectators of the musical “Nord-Ost”. The assault began at 05.17, when special forces began to launch a special nerve agent through the ventilation shafts. At that moment, several hostages called their friends and said that some kind of gas was arriving at the cultural center, but their speech quickly became incoherent, and then they were unable to say anything at all. The gas suppressed the will of all those present in the hall, and most importantly, the terrorists. If at least one of them had time to press several toggle switches on her belt or connect wires, the bombs would begin to explode one after another, and the building could simply collapse. Within just a few seconds after the gas began to take effect, the snipers destroyed all the female suicide bombers with precise shots to the head, and then the fighters in gas masks moved on to destroy the other bandits who were in the auditorium. One of them was armed with a Kalashnikov machine gun, but did not have time to use it, firing only one unaimed burst. At the same time, part of the special forces, who entered the building through the roof, dealt with the terrorists in the utility rooms of the second floor, using noise and flash grenades. Most of the bandits were already unconscious, since the gas affected those first of all.