Dagestan War
Encyclopedia
The invasion of Dagestan, also known as the War in Dagestan and Dagestan War, began on August 7, 1999, when the Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

-based Islamic International Brigade
Islamic International Brigade
The Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade was the name of an international unit of Islamist mujahideen founded in 1998....

 (IIB), an Islamist
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...

 militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...

 led by warlords Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...

 and Ibn al-Khattab
Ibn al-Khattab
Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem , more commonly known as Emir Khattab meaning Commander Khattab, or Leader Khattab, and also known as Habib Abdul Rahman, was a Muslim guerilla fighter and financier working with Chechen Mujahideen in the First Chechen War...

, invaded the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan
Dagestan
The Republic of Dagestan is a federal subject of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and the largest city is Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea...

 in support of the Shura of Dagestan separatist
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...

 movement. The war ended with a major Russian victory and the retreat of the IIB. The Invasion of Dagestan was one of the major causes of, and served as the casus belli
Casus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...

for, the Second Chechen War
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....

.

Background

Having achieved de facto independence from Russia after the First Chechen War
First Chechen War
The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996...

, Chechnya descended into anarchy and economic collapse. Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was a leader of the Chechen separatist movement and the third President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the...

's government was unable to rebuild the region and to prevent a number of warlords from taking effective control. Relationship between the government and radicals polarized. In March, 1999, Maskhadov closed down the Chechen parliament and introduced aspects of Sharia law. Despite this concession, extremists such as Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...

 and Saudi-born Islamist Ibn Al-Khattab
Ibn al-Khattab
Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem , more commonly known as Emir Khattab meaning Commander Khattab, or Leader Khattab, and also known as Habib Abdul Rahman, was a Muslim guerilla fighter and financier working with Chechen Mujahideen in the First Chechen War...

 continued to undermine Maskhadov's government. In April, 1998, this radical group publicly declared its long-term aim to be the creation of a union of Chechnya and Dagestan under Islamic rule and the expulsion of Russians from the entire Caucasian Region.

In late 1997, Bagauddin Magomedov, the ethnic Avar
Caucasian Avars
Avars or Caucasian Avars are a modern people of Caucasus, mainly of Dagestan, in which they are the predominant group. The Caucasian Avar language belongs to the Northeast Caucasian language family ....

 leader of the radical wing of the Dagestani Wahhabis
Wahhabism
Wahhabism is a religious movement or a branch of Islam. It was developed by an 18th century Muslim theologian from Najd, Saudi Arabia. Ibn Abdul Al-Wahhab advocated purging Islam of what he considered to be impurities and innovations...

 (Salafism), fled with his entourage to Chechnya. There he established close ties with Al-Khattab and other leaders of Chechnya's Wahhabi community. In January 1999, Khattab began the formation of an "Islamic Legion" with foreign Muslim volunteers. At the same time, he commanded the "peacemaking unit of the Majlis (Parliament) of Ichkeria and Dagestan." A series of invasions from Chechnya to Dagestan took place during the inter-war period, culminating in the 1997 attack on a federal military garrison of the 136th Motorized Rifle Regiment near the Dagestani town of Buinaksk. Militants from the Wahhabist area ruled by the Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan
Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan
Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan was an Islamist political entity in the Buynaksky District of Dagestan consisting of the fortified villages of Kadar, Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi. In the late 1990s, the Djamaat, heavily influenced by militant Wahhabism, declared independence and ejected Dagestani...

 took part. Other attacks targeted civilians and Dagestani police on a regular basis.

In April 1999, Magomedov, the "Emir of the Islamic Jamaat of Dagestan," made an appeal to the "Islamic patriots of the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

" to "take part in the jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

" and to do their share in "liberating Dagestan and the Caucasus from the Russian colonial yoke." According him, proponents of the idea of a free Islamic Dagestan were to enlist in his "Islamic Army of the Caucasus", and report to the army's headquarters (in the village of Karamakhi
Karamakhi
Karamakhi is a rural locality in Buynaksky District of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia.-Overview:In 1997-1999, Karamakhi became a hotbed of radical islamism...

) for military duty. Chechen separatist government official Turpal-Ali Atgeriev
Turpal-Ali Atgeriev
Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev was a former Deputy Prime Minister and National Security Minister of Chechnya. Also spelled Turpal, Atgeriev.- Biography :...

 claimed to have alerted the FSB director Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

, in the summer of 1999, of the imminent invasion of Dagestan.

Invasion and Russian counterattack

On August 4, 1999, several Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del is the interior ministry of Russia. Its predecessor was founded in 1802 by Alexander I in Imperial Russia...

 (MVD) servicemen were killed in a border clash with a group of Magomedov's fighters led by Bagaudin Kebedov. On August 7 Basayev and Khattab launched an invasion into Dagestan with a group of roughly 1,500-2,000 armed militants consisting of Islamic radicals from Chechenya and Dagestan, as well as other international Islamists.

Khattab described himself as the operation's main strategist, while Basayev was said to be its field commander. They seized the villages of Ansalta, Rakhata and Shadroda and reached the village of Tando
Tando
Tando is a village in Botlikhsky District of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia.The village was seized by a Chechen guerilla unit led by Shamil Basayev in August 1999 in the course of the Invasion of Dagestan.-References:...

, close to the district town of Botlikh. On August 10, they announced the birth of the "independent Islamic State
Islamic State
An Islamic state is a type of government, in which the primary basis for government is Islamic religious law...

 of Dagestan" and declared war on "the traitorous Dagestani government" and "Russia's occupation units."

The Russian military was slow to respond, and efforts to mobilize and counterattack were initially fumbling and disorganized. Because of this, all of the early resistance (and much of the later resistance as well) was undertaken by the Dagestani police, by spontaneously organized citizen militias, and by individual Dagestani villagers. Basayev and Khattab were not welcomed as "liberators" as they had expected; the Dagestani villagers considered the invading force as occupiers and unwelcome religious fanatics. Instead of an anti-Russian uprising, the border areas saw mass mobilization of volunteers against Basayev's and Khattab's army.

As resistance stiffened, Russian government forces finally intervened, launching air and artillery strikes against the invaders. The Russian Air Force
Russian Air Force
The Russian Air Force is the air force of Russian Military. It is currently under the command of Colonel General Aleksandr Zelin. The Russian Navy has its own air arm, the Russian Naval Aviation, which is the former Soviet Aviatsiya Voyenno Morskogo Flota , or AV-MF).The Air Force was formed from...

 also started bombing targets inside Chechnya. This conflict saw the first use of aerial-delivered fuel-air explosive
Fuel-air explosive
A fuel-air explosive device consists of a container of fuel and two separate explosive charges. After the munition is dropped or fired, the first explosive charge bursts open the container at a predetermined height and disperses the fuel in a cloud that mixes with atmospheric oxygen...

s (FAE) against populated areas by Russian forces, notably on the village of Tando. The rebels were stalled by the ferocity of the bombardments: their supply lines were cut and scattered with remotely detonating mines. This gave Russia time to organize a counterattack under Colonel-General Viktor Kazantsev
Viktor Kazantsev
Viktor Germanovich Kazantsev , born 1946, was an envoy of the Russian president to the Southern Federal District from 2000 to 2004. He performed primary negotiations between the Russian government and the Chechen opposition...

, commander of the North Caucasus Military District
North Caucasus Military District
The North Caucasus Military District was a military district of the Russian Ground Forces, which became in 2010 the Southern Military District and lately also includes the Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla....

. T-90
T-90
The T-90 is a Russian third-generation main battle tank that is a modernisation of the T-72 . It is currently the most modern tank in service with the Russian Ground Forces and Naval Infantry...

 tanks were used for the first time during the operation. In the Kadar zone, a group of 8-12 T-90S tanks broke through stubborn resistance. One of the tanks was hit by seven RPG rockets, and remained in action. On August 23 Basaev and Khattab announced they were withdrawing their forces from Botlikh district to "redeploy" and begin a "new phase" in their operations.

Russian forces continued operations to mop up resistance. On the night of September 4, as the Russian Army was wiping out the last bastions of resistance in the Kadar region, a car bomb
Car bomb
A car bomb, or truck bomb also known as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device , is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle,...

 destroyed a military housing building in the Dagestani town of Buynaksk
Buynaksk
Buynaksk is a town in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, located at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus on the Shura-Ozen River, southwest of the republic's capital Makhachkala. Population: 40,000 ....

, killing 64 people and starting the first in the wave of the Russian apartment bombings
Russian apartment bombings
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring 651. The explosions occurred in Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 and 13 September, and...

. On the morning of September 5, Chechen rebels launched a second invasion into the lowland Novolakskoye region of Dagestan, this time with a larger force. The rebels came within a mere five kilometres of the major town of Khasavyurt
Khasavyurt
Khasavyurt is a city in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. Population: It was founded in 1846 and granted town status in 1931. The main local industries are food processing, brick making and garment making....

. The second invasion at the height of the hostilities in the Karamakhi zone on September 5 came as unpleasant surprise to Moscow and Makhachkala. According to Basayev, the purpose of the second invasion was to distract federal forces attacking Karamakhi
Karamakhi
Karamakhi is a rural locality in Buynaksky District of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia.-Overview:In 1997-1999, Karamakhi became a hotbed of radical islamism...

 and Chabanmakhi. Intensive fighting continued until September 12, when Russian government forces supported by local volunteers finally forced the Islamists back to Chechnya, though sporadic armed clashes with remnants of Islamist forces continued for some time.

By mid-September 1999 the villages were recaptured from the routed militants, and they were pushed back into Chechnya. At least several hundred people were killed in the fighting, including an unknown number of civilians. The federal side stated that they suffered 279 dead and approximately 987 wounded.

Aftermath

Russia followed up with a bombing campaign of southeastern Chechnya; on September 23, Russian fighter jets bombed targets in and around the Chechen capital Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...

. Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was a leader of the Chechen separatist movement and the third President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the...

, the separatist president of Chechnya, opposed the invasion of Dagestan, and offered a crackdown on the renegade warlords. It was refused by the Kremlin and on October 1999, after a string of four apartment bombings
Russian apartment bombings
The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring 651. The explosions occurred in Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 and 13 September, and...

, Russian ground forces invaded Chechnya, starting the Second Chechen War
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....

. Since then, Dagestan has been a site of an ongoing, low-level insurgency by a number of armed Islamist groups (such as Shariat Jamaat
Shariat Jamaat
Jamaat Shariat, officially the Islamic Jamaat of Dagestan "Shariat" and also known as Shari’ah Jamaat, is the largest Islamist militant organization in the Russian republic of Dagestan, North Caucasus...

) which has claimed the lives of hundreds of people, mostly civilians.

The invasion of Dagestan caused the displacement of 32,000 Dagestani civilians. According to researcher Robert Bruce Ware
Robert Bruce Ware
Robert Bruce Ware is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He is the author of Hegel: The Logic of Self-consciousness and the Legacy of Subjective Freedom...

, Basayev and Khattab's invasions were potentially genocidal
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

 in that they attacked mountain villages destroying entire populations of small ethno-linguistic groups. Furthermore, Ware asserts that the invasions are properly described as terrorist attacks because they initially involved attacks against Dagestani civilians and police officers.

Conspiracy theories

Because the invasion of Dagestan served as a trigger for the Second Chechen War that led to an eventual Russian victory, a number of conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory explains an event as being the result of an alleged plot by a covert group or organization or, more broadly, the idea that important political, social or economic events are the products of secret plots that are largely unknown to the general public.-Usage:The term "conspiracy...

 claimed it was not a Wahhabi attempt to create a Caucasian Emirate, but rather a false flag
False flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...

 attack orchestrated by the Kremlin. Not a single person actually involved in the Dagestan War has been able to confirm any of them.

Russian government involvement

Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky claimed to have had a conversation with Chechen Islamist ideologist Movladi Udugov
Movladi Udugov
Movladi Saidarbievich Udugov was the First Deputy Prime Minister of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria...

 six months before the beginning of the rebel invasion of Dagestan. Allegedly, Udugov proposed him to start the Dagestan war to provoke a Russian response, topple Chechen president Maskhadov
Aslan Maskhadov
Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was a leader of the Chechen separatist movement and the third President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the...

 and establish a new Islamic republic
Islamic republic
Islamic republic is the name given to several states in the Muslim world including the Islamic Republics of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian...

 made of Chechnya and Ingushetia that would be friendly to Russia. Berezovsky asserted that he refused the offer, but "Udugov and Basayev conspired with Stepashin and Putin to provoke a war to topple Maskhadov... but the agreement was for the Russian army to stop at the Terek River". According to Berezovski, "Putin double-crossed the Chechens and started an all-out war." A transcript of the conversation was leaked to a Moscow tabloid on September 10, 1999. Nevertheless, even if the Russian Army had stopped at Terek River, they could have still taken over Chechnya, as most of the Terek River flows through Chechnya, and the part that borders Dagestan, where the Russian Army was allegedly to stop, has no major river crossings. Basayev, who had an extensive knowledge of Caucasian geography as a result of having commanded numerous battles in the region, claimed that he would never have sold Chechnya to Putin, and denied the making of such a deal.

The conflict in Dagestan was regarded by Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...

 as a provocation initiated from Moscow in order to start war in Chechnya, with Russian forces providing safe passage for Islamic fighters back to Chechnya. It was further alleged that Alexander Voloshin
Alexander Voloshin
Alexander Staliyevich Voloshin is a Russian politician who briefly was chairman of the Board of Directors of RAO UES, the former Russian state power utility, which was liquidated as part of the country's comprehensive power sector reforms on 1 July 2008.In 1997, he was appointed as an assistant...

, then an advisor to Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...

, paid money to Basayev to stage this military operation in collaboration with Russia's GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

. However, Basayev denied any involvement with the GRU, nor was there any actual evidence of Basaev's involvement as a GRU agent.

Berezovsky's involvement

A member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a Russian political party. It is the second major political party in the Russian Federation.-History:...

, Viktor Ilyukhin, who served as a co-chair of the defense committee, charged the FSB with "failing to timely disclose the information about [Boris] Berezovksy's financing of Chechen rebel leaders". Ilyukhin believes that had Berezovsky's finances been timely exposed, the number of civilian and military casualties in Chechenya, on both sides, would have been greatly diminished; he maintained Berezovsky was attempting to take control of the region's natural resources. Ilyukhin did not mention how Berezovsky would have controlled the region's government had his "plan" worked. One way of the finances is that the Chechens would capture civilians, and demand monetary compensation; yet Maskhadov and Basayev often complained that parts of the compensation were siphoned to mysterious third parties.

When the FSB published the charges against Berezovsky, he responded by blaming the FSB for the Apartment Bombings, and stating that he had a movie to show the Russian Public that would be shown on TV-6 in 2002. However, TV-6 was shut down by the Russian government, and the movie is yet to be seen or published, despite other media outlets having been offered to Berezovsky.

See also

  • First Chechen War
    First Chechen War
    The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996...

  • Russian apartment bombings
    Russian apartment bombings
    The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 people and injuring 651. The explosions occurred in Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 and 13 September, and...

  • Second Chechen War
    Second Chechen War
    The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....

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