Aslan Maskhadov

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Image:Mashadov.jpgAslan Aliyevich Maskhadov (Russian: Аслан Алиевич Масхадов) (September 21, 1951 – March 8, 2005) was a leader of the separatist movement in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya. He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the de facto establishment of an independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Maskhadov became President of the nation in January of 1997 with heavy backup from Moscow. Following the start of the Second Chechen War, he returned to leading the guerrilla movement against the Russian army. He was reported killed in a village in southern Chechnya in March 2005.

1 Early life
2 First Chechen War
3 Second Chechen War
4 Maskhadov's death
5 See also
6 External links

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Early life

In 1951, Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, in the small village of Shakai. This was during the exile of the Chechen people, under Joseph Stalin's orders. In 1957, his family was allowed to return to Chechnya. He joined the Army, training in the neighboring Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, and graduating from the Tbilisi Artillery School in 1972. He graduated from Leningrad's Military Academy in 1981, and he was posted to Hungary with a self-propelled artillery regiment. He served from 1990 as the local commander of Soviet rocket forces and artillery in Vilnius, capital of the Lithuanian SSR. He retired from the Russian Army in 1992 with the rank of a colonel and returned to his native land.

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First Chechen War

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Maskhadov became the Chief of Staff for the embryonic Chechen army under the command of former Soviet general Dzhokhar Dudayev. He was the senior military figure on the Chechen side during the First Chechen War (1994-1996) and was widely seen as being instrumental to the Chechen victory over the Russian forces. He led the Chechen delegation in peace talks with Russia which led to a truce ending the war.

On October 17, 1996, he was appointed provisional prime minister of Chechnya following the assassination of Dudayev by Russian forces. With backing from Moscow, where he was seen as the least radical candidate, he stood for President in the elections of January 1997, running against Shamil Basayev, a field commander with a popular following. Mashkadov won a large majority and was congratulated by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who pledged to work towards rebuilding relations with Chechnya (but still refused to recognise its independent status).

Maskhadov's position became increasingly insecure as he gradually lost control of Basayev, who created a network of militias and warlords across the republic. Maskhadov found himself the target of assassination attempts mounted by Basayev and his allies. Chechnya became notorious for kidnappings and terrorism as well as organised crime elsewhere in Russia. Mashkhadov also attempted with only limited success to curb the growth of Wahhabism and other fundamentalist Muslim groups supported by Basayev, producing a split in the Chechen separatist movement between Muslim fundamentalists and secular nationalists.

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Second Chechen War

An attack by Basayev's forces on the neighboring Republic of Dagestan in September 1999 proved the final straw for Russia, where opinion saw Maskhadov as either being incompetent and incapable of controlling his country, or else in league with the terrorists. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sent Russian forces back into Chechnya in October 1999, propelling Putin into the Russian Presidency.

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After Chechen forces' withdrawal from Grozny Maskhadov returned to life as a guerrilla leader, living in hiding as Russia's second most wanted man after Basayev, with Russia placing a $10 million bounty on his capture. He was seen as the political leader of the separatist forces during the Second Chechen War. It is unclear what kind of a military role he played. Maskhadov advocated armed resistance to what he saw as a Russian occupation but condemned attacks on civilians, although he apparently supported the separatist assassination of pro-Russian Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov whilst condemning the Russian assassination of Chechen separatist President Dudayev in Chechnya in 1996, and the assassination of Dudayev's successor ex-President Yandarbiyev in Qatar in 2004.

He consistently denied being responsible for the increasingly brutal terrorist acts carried out against civilians by Basayev's followers since 1999, and often denounced them through spokesmen abroad, such as Akhmed Zakayev, presently in exile in London. While some Western observers considered these denunciations plausible, Russian officials considered them insincere and have always accused both Basayev and Maskhadov of colluding to perpetrate terrorism. Western leaders have not given much public reaction to his death, in marked contrast to the death of Palestinian President and guerrilla leader Yasser Arafat.

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Maskhadov's death

On March 8, 2005, FSB head Nikolay Patrushev announced that special forces attached to the FSB had "today carried out an operation in the settlement of Tolstoy-Yurt, as a result of which the international terrorist and leader of armed groups Maskhadov was killed, and his closest comrades-in-arms detained". The special operations unit had wanted to take Maskhadov alive for interrogation, but apparently killed him accidentally with a grenade thrown into a reinforced bunker where Maskhadov was hiding. Maskhadov had apparently ordered his bodyguards to leave before engaging the Russian special forces on his own.

A body was shown on Russian television that looked very much like Maskhadov. Akhmed Zakayev, one of his closest allies who acted as his spokesman and "Foreign Minister", told a Russian radio station that it was probable that Maskhadov had indeed been killed. He indicated later that a new Chechen leader could be chosen within days.

Although no one knows for sure how Maskhadov was killed, it is reported in the Russian media that Maskhadov's own bodyguards had accidentally killed him in the panic of the fire fight. Another version is that he was killed by forces loyal to Chechnya's Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov - Kadyrov had vowed to avenge the assassination of his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, but was not willing to take credit for it so as to stop the vendetta cycle.

Four Chechens: Vakhit Murdashev, Viskhan Hadzhimuradov, Skanarbek Yusupov and Ilias Iriskhanov were captured by the special operation. Since October 10 2005 their case is in the High Court of Chechen republic. According to their evidence [1] Maskhadov was caught during preparation of a peace settlement with Russian Federal authorities but this has been disputed by the latter ones. Maskhadov's willingness to negotiate with hostage-takers during Beslan school hostage crisis has been referred to in independent Russian media as one of the possible reasons for shooting started by Russian security forces on the third day of the crisis [2] [3].

Shortly following Maskhadov's death, the Chechen rebel council announced that Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev had assumed the leadership, a move that was quickly endorsed by Shamil Basayev

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