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unit for  Operation Jihad in Moscow (or the Mineralnye Vody Airport) to
 stop the war or die. The team made it all the way to the Russian town of
Budyonnovsk, but having run out of bribe money the group was arrested and
brought to the police station.357 Once there, previously undiscovered fighters
emerged from three Kamaz trucks and with swift action seized some 2,500
hostages in a hospital, demanding that Russian forces pull out of Chech-
nya.358 To resolve the crisis that unfolded, the responding Russian forces led
by the elite Alpha commando unit assaulted the Chechen positions but were
forced to retreat, partially due to the terrorists use of hostages as human
shields.359 The stand-off continued for another five days, after which Basayev s
men negotiated with then Prime Minister Chernomyrdin a free passage out of
Budyonnovsk, as well as an announcement of a temporary ceasefire and a dec-
laration of the Russian commitment to serious negotiations with Chechen
representatives. The casualty figure of the Budyonnovsk siege was 166
hostages killed and 541 injured.360
Budyonnovsk was significant for several reasons. First, it was the first
Chechen operation deliberately targeting Russian civilians. Commenting on
the objectives of the siege, Basayev stated:  We wanted to show to the
people in Russia that this war is very close to them, too; we wanted them to
see what blood looks like, and how it is when people are dying. We wanted
them to understand it, to wake up. 361 This statement is crucial, as it effect-
ively summarizes the entire strategic logic later adopted by the RAS. The
second point of significance lies in the fact the at the time of its execution
 Operation Jihad was the largest barricade hostage-taking operation in
history, by the number of both attackers and hostages involved. Third, the
X-ray machine taken in the Budyonnovsk raid served as the source of
cesium-137, which Basayev later used for the first modern act of radiological
terrorism; five months after Budyonnovsk Basayev directed a television news
crew to a 32 kg parcel containing 10 50 mCi of the radioactive isotope,
threatening that many such containers were placed around Moscow and that
they could be detonated at any time.362 In the future, Basayev would use this
type of psychological warfare on many occasions, threatening attacks with
not only radiological, but also chemical and biological weapons. And finally,
in Budyonnovsk Basayev succeeded in forcing the Russians into a humiliat-
ing position of giving in to his demands, a development that not only gave
Basayev a high level of confidence in the effectiveness of the tactic used, but
also shaped Russia s reactions to similar incidents in the future.
Following the end of the first Chechen war in which Basayev relied
mainly on military means, the conflict reached its second phase in 1999 after
106 Riyadus-Salikhin Suicide Battalion
two armed incursions of Basayev s fighters into the neighboring republic of
Dagestan, and the apartment buildings bombings that killed nearly 300 and
injured more than 550 people.363 After the subsequent invasion of Russian
forces to Chechnya, the conflict saw a radically changing nature of the
Chechen resistance, which transpired mainly by increased Islamization and
the growing influence of radicals, especially Basayev. Both of these processes
were naturally reflected in the means that would be used in the fight against
the Russians. In the most important development, Basayev made public
statements about setting up a battalion of suicide bombers and on 7 June
2000 the first such attack took place after Khava Barayeva and Luisa Mago-
madova drove a truck of explosives into the temporary headquarters of an
elite Special Forces (OMON) detachment in the village of Alkhan Yurt,
Chechnya, killing two (or 27) officers.364 In the next two years at least eight
other suicide operations took place against Russian military targets in
Chechnya, including a coordinated attack of five suicide truck bombers who
blew up military checkpoints and a police dormitory killing 33 people and
injuring 84, and an assassination of the Russian military commander of
Urus-Martan.365 In about one-half of the attacks the suicide bombers were
women, a phenomenon previously absolutely alien to Islamist terrorist
organizations.
Another turning point from the tactical perspective was the August 2002
meeting of the Military Shura, where Basayev proposed an attack on the  lair
of the enemy in the heart of Moscow, also announcing the founding of the
RAS as a new entity created specifically for this purpose.366 It appears that at
this time the RAS was meant to be a single unit for an ad-hoc operation, as
opposed to an actual group. The original plan was to perpetrate four major
acts of terror in Moscow  with explosions in densely populated places as part
of a frightening action, which should have been completed by the largest
action  the seizure of the State Duma.367 However, following two failed
bombing attempts in Moscow Basayev modified his plan, and on 23 October
2002 a group of at least 43 armed men and women took 979 people hostage
at the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow. The classic Basayev-style hostage-
taking operation lasted for 58 hours and ended in a controversial rescue
operation that resulted in 129 dead hostages, most of whom died due to
exposure to a gas used in the assault.
According to the Chechens own words, preparations for the  Nord-Ost
operation took two to three months. Six weeks before the actual raid, some
of the team s members traveled to Moscow and secured jobs as construction
workers at the Central Station II nightclub within the theater complex.
During those six weeks, the  workers conducted detailed casing of the loca-
tion, stored explosives and arms in the club s back rooms, and on several
occasions also attended the featured musical. Once in the theater during the
attack, the commando unit followed the Budyonnovsk blueprint to the last
detail including the demand of an unconditional pullout of Russian forces
from Chechnya, the wiring of explosives in the corridors and the deployment
Riyadus-Salikhin Suicide Battalion 107
of snipers in strategic perimeter positions. A new addition was the employ-
ment of a large explosive device containing roughly 110 pounds of TNT and
19 suicide belts placed around the waists of female terrorists.368
What were the objectives of the raid? The demands appear straight-
forward, but based on previous Russian responses to similar incidents in
Budyonnovsk and Kizlyar, the RAS team was 100 percent sure that sooner
or later the Russian elite forces would launch an assault.369 The apparent
goal then was to achieve maximum casualties among the hostages as a result
of the rescue operation, in an attempt to  show to the whole world that
Russian leadership will without mercy slaughter its own citizens in the
middle of Moscow. 370 If this was indeed the goal then the operation suc-
ceeded beyond expectation, as all but three of the 129 fatalities were victims
of the rescue attempt. However, Basayev appears to have grossly miscalcu-
lated the reaction of the world community to the  Nord-Ost operation,
which in the wake of 9-11 and the skillful Russian spin doctoring ended up [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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