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138-771: It was created by Fathi al-Urduni in 1995 during the First Chechen War , where it fought against the Russian Federation in favor of Chechnya's independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria . During the Second Chechen War it played an important part in further fighting. The unit has been known by several names throughout its existence. Examples include the Chechen Mujahideen , the Islamic Regiment ,

276-521: A Cypriot passenger jet was hijacked by Chechen sympathisers while flying toward Germany . Both of these incidents were resolved through negotiations, and the hijackers surrendered without any fatalities being inflicted. According to the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces , 3,826 troops were killed, 17,892 troops were wounded, and 1,906 troops are missing in action . According to

414-729: A state of emergency and threatened general mobilization if the Russian troops did not withdraw from the Chechen border. To prevent the invasion of Chechnya, he did not provoke the Russian troops. After staging another coup d'état attempt in December 1993, the opposition organized themselves into the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic as a potential alternative government for Chechnya, calling on Moscow for assistance. In August 1994,

552-555: A Chechen weapons cache. On 29 December, in a rare instance of a Russian outright victory, the Russian airborne forces seized the military airfield next to Grozny and repelled a Chechen counter-attack in the Battle of Khankala ; the next objective was the city itself. With the Russians closing in on the capital, the Chechens began to set up defensive fighting positions and grouped their forces in

690-461: A burned-out house holding a dead baby. Trucks with bodies piled in the back rolled through the streets on the way to the cemetery. While treating the wounded, I heard stories of young men – gagged and trussed up – dragged with chains behind personnel carriers. I heard of Russian aviators who threw Chechen prisoners, screaming, out their helicopters. There were rapes, but it was hard to know how many because women were too ashamed to report them. One girl

828-512: A few days." Of course, I was outraged by these manipulations. The Chechen formations also suffered fairly high losses. According to the militants, they lost 3,000 fighters. According to official Russian data, Chechen militants lost 17,391 people killed. According to the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University , Mujahideen Mujahideen , or Mujahidin ( Arabic : مُجَاهِدِين , romanized :  mujāhidīn ),

966-492: A high proportion of initial civilian casualties were inflicted against ethnic Russians who were unable to find viable escape routes. The villages were also attacked from the first weeks of the conflict (Russian cluster bombs , for example, killed at least 55 civilians during the 3 January 1995 Shali cluster bomb attack ). Russian soldiers often prevented civilians from evacuating areas of imminent danger and prevented humanitarian organizations from assisting civilians in need. It

1104-459: A massive scale, kidnapped or killed Chechens considered to be collaborators and mistreated civilian captives and federal prisoners of war (especially pilots). Russian federal forces kidnapped hostages for ransom and used human shields for cover during the fighting and movement of troops (for example, a group of surrounded Russian troops took approximately 500 civilian hostages at Grozny's 9th Municipal Hospital). The violations committed by members of

1242-514: A month after the initial conflict, Chechen fighters successfully carried out an ambush near Shatoy , wiping out an entire Russian armored column resulting in losses up to 220 soldiers killed in action. In another attack near Vedeno , at least 28 Russian soldiers were killed in action. As military defeats and growing casualties made the war more and more unpopular in Russia, and as the 1996 presidential elections neared, Boris Yeltsin 's government sought

1380-491: A number of demonstrators. The ruins of the presidential palace, the symbol of Chechen independence, were then demolished two days later. On 6 March 1996, a group of Chechen fighters infiltrated Grozny and launched a three-day surprise raid on the city, taking most of it and capturing caches of weapons and ammunition. During the battle, much of the Russian troops were wiped out, with most of them surrendering or routing. After two columns of Russian reinforcements were destroyed on

1518-621: A pretext for intervention. Russian ground forces invaded Chechnya again in 1999. The separatists were less successful in the Second Chechen War. Russian officials claimed that the separatists had been defeated as early as 2002. The Russians also succeeded in killing the most prominent mujahideen commanders, most notably Ibn al-Khattab and Abu al-Walid . Although the region has since been far from stable, separatist activity has decreased, though some foreign fighters remain active in Chechnya. In

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1656-412: A total ban on the use of the armed forces in such situations. Russian government officials feared that a move to end the war short of victory would create a cascade of secession attempts by other ethnic minorities. On 16 January 1996, a Turkish passenger ship carrying 200 Russian passengers was taken over by what were mostly Turkish gunmen who were seeking to publicize the Chechen cause. On 6 March,

1794-582: A united front against the DRA. The AIG became a failure, partly because it could not solve the differences between the factions; partly because of limited public support as it excluded the Iran-backed Shia mujahideen factions, and the exclusion of supporters of ex-King Mohammed Zahir Shah ; and the mujahideen's failure in the Battle of Jalalabad in March 1989. In 1992 the DRA's last president, Mohammad Najibullah ,

1932-503: A victory for the Russian federal forces, Russia's subsequent efforts to establish control over the remaining lowlands and mountainous regions of Chechnya were met with fierce resistance and frequent surprise raids by Chechen guerrillas. The recapture of Grozny in 1996 played a part in the Khasavyurt Accord (ceasefire), and the signing of the 1997 Russia–Chechnya Peace Treaty . The official Russian estimate of Russian military deaths

2070-597: A way out of the conflict. Although a Russian guided missile attack assassinated the Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev on 21 April 1996. Yeltsin even officially declared "victory" in Grozny on 28 May 1996, after a new temporary ceasefire was signed with the Chechen acting president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev . While the political leaders were discussing the ceasefire and peace negotiations, Russian forces continued to conduct combat operations. On 6 August 1996, three days before Yeltsin

2208-873: Is known as "Mujahids". Many militant groups have been involved in the war in North West Pakistan, most notably the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan , Al Qaeda , and ISIS Khorasan Province . These groups refer to themselves as the mujahideen in their war against the Pakistani military and the west. Several different militant groups have also taken root in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Most noticeable of these groups are Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Hizbul Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). A 1996 report by Human Rights Watch estimated

2346-493: Is spiritually comparable in reward to promoting Islam during the early 600s CE. These acts could be as simple as sharing a considerable amount of one's income with the poor. The term continued to be used throughout India for Muslim resistance to British colonial rule . During the Indian Rebellion of 1857 , these holy warriors were said to accept any deserting Indian sepoys and recruit them into their ranks. As time went by,

2484-410: Is the plural form of mujahid ( Arabic : مُجَاهِد , romanized :  mujāhid , lit.   'strugglers or strivers, doers of jihād'), an Arabic term that broadly refers to people who engage in jihad ( lit.   ' struggle or striving [for justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc.] ' ), interpreted in a jurisprudence of Islam as the fight on behalf of God, religion or

2622-563: The 2003 invasion of Iraq . Some groups also use the word mujahideen in their names, like Mujahideen Shura Council and Mujahideen Army . Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq as part of the George W. Bush administration's post 9/11 foreign policy, many foreign Mujahideen joined several Sunni militant groups resisting the U.S. occupation of Iraq. A considerable part of the insurgents did not come from Iraq but instead from many other Arab countries, notably Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Among these recruits

2760-639: The Abdullah Azzam Brigades in Lebanon admitted that his group had sent fighters to Syria. On 12 November 2018, the United States closed its financial system to an Iraqi named, Shibl Muhsin 'Ubayd Al-Zaydi and others over concerns that they were sending Iraqi fighters to Syria and financial support to other Hezbollah activities in the region. The Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSC)

2898-458: The Afghan War ), also resigned in protest of the invasion ("It will be a bloodbath, another Afghanistan ", Gromov said on television), as did General Boris Poliakov. More than 800 professional soldiers and officers refused to take part in the operation; of these, 83 were convicted by military courts and the rest were discharged. Later General Lev Rokhlin also refused to be decorated as a Hero of

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3036-520: The Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya group active during the 1990s. In July 2006, a Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to build an Islamic state in the country and warned western states that his al-Qaeda network would fight against them if they intervened there. Foreign fighters began to arrive, though there were official denials of the presence of mujahideen in the country. Even so,

3174-430: The First Chechen War they were notorious and feared for their guerilla tactics , inflicting severe casualties on Russian forces. The mujahideen also made a significant financial contribution to the Chechen cause; with their access to the immense wealth of Salafist charities like al-Haramein , they soon became an invaluable source of funds for the Chechen resistance, which had little to none resources of its own. After

3312-520: The First Russo-Chechen War , was a struggle for independence waged by the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against the Russian Federation from 11 December 1994 to 31 August 1996. This conflict was preceded by the battle of Grozny in November 1994 , during which Russia covertly sought to overthrow the new Chechen government. Following the intense Battle of Grozny in 1994–1995 , which concluded with

3450-714: The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami to confuse investigators and cover the tracks of the Students Islamic Movement of India , or SIMI, a radical Islamist movement with aim to establish Islamic rule over India. In the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir , Kashmiri Muslim separatists opposing Indian rule are often known as mujahideen . The members of the Salafi movement (within Sunni Islam ) in the south Indian state of Kerala

3588-836: The Islamic Battalion , the Arabs in Chechnya and the Ansaar in Chechnya . Although the overwhelming majority of the unit has always consisted of Arab volunteers, there were also members of non-Arab, usually Kurds , Turks and other North Cauсasians. It is not to be confused with the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR), al-Qaeda ’s 055 Brigade or the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB). Foreign Mujahideen have played an important part in both First and Second Chechen Wars . After

3726-534: The Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan separatist rebels . After the battle, they retreated back into Chechnya. The incursion provided the new Russian government with a pretext for intervention and in December 1999 Russian ground forces invaded Chechnya again. During the ensuing Second Chechen War , the Arab Mujahideen played another important part, both for delivering fighters and their financial contributions. It

3864-452: The Mayu peninsula in northern Arakan, Burma (present-day Rakhine State , Myanmar ) secede from the country, so it could be annexed by East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh ). During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the mujahideen lost most of their momentum and support, resulting in most of them surrendering to government forces. In the 1990s, the well-armed Rohingya Solidarity Organisation

4002-611: The Middle East in the latter part of the 19th century. The Chechens' subsequent attempts at gaining independence after the 1917 fall of the Russian Empire failed, and in 1922 Chechnya became part of Soviet Russia and in December 1922 part of the newly formed Soviet Union (USSR). In 1936, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin established the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , within

4140-588: The NVO , the authoritative Russian independent military weekly, at least 5,362 Russian soldiers died during the war, 52,000 Russian soldiers were wounded or became diseased and some 3,000 more Russian soldiers were still missing in 2005. However, the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia estimated that the total number of Russian military deaths was 14,000, based on information which it collected from wounded troops and soldiers' relatives (only counting regular troops, i.e. not

4278-507: The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) described the scenes as nothing short of an "unimaginable catastrophe", while former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev called the war a "disgraceful, bloody adventure" and German chancellor Helmut Kohl called it "sheer madness". Following the fall of Grozny , the Russian government slowly and methodically expanded its control over

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4416-699: The Palestinian Territories ; to quote the summary of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia judgment: The evidence shows that foreign volunteers arrived in central Bosnia in the second half of 1992 with the aim of helping Muslims. Mostly they came from North Africa , the Near East and the Middle East. The foreign volunteers differed considerably from the local population, not only because of their physical appearance and

4554-635: The Republic of Dagestan . In particular, the border village of Pervomayskoye was completely destroyed by Russian forces in January 1996 in reaction to the large-scale Chechen hostage taking in Kizlyar in Dagestan (in which more than 2,000 hostages were taken), bringing strong criticism from this hitherto loyal republic and escalating domestic dissatisfaction. The Don Cossacks of Southern Russia , originally sympathetic to

4692-513: The Russian Federation , while Chechnya declared full independence from Moscow in 1993 as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI). The economy of Chechnya collapsed as Dudayev severed economic links with Russia while black market trading, arms trafficking and counterfeiting grew. Violence and social disruption increased and the marginal social groups, such as unemployed young men from the countryside, became armed. Ethnic Russians and other non-Chechens faced constant harassment as they fell outside

4830-468: The Russian Ground Forces , General Eduard Vorobyov  [ ru ] , who then resigned in protest, stating that it is "a crime" to "send the army against its own people." Many in the Russian military and government opposed the war as well. Yeltsin 's adviser on nationality affairs, Emil Pain  [ ru ] , and Russia's Deputy Minister of Defense General Boris Gromov (commander of

4968-823: The Russian Ministry of Defence for damages inflicted, recalling how the federal forces previously assisted in the expulsion of the Ingush population from North Ossetia. Undisciplined Russian soldiers were also reported to be committing murders, rapes, and looting in Ingushetia (in an incident partially witnessed by visiting Russian Duma deputies, at least nine Ingush civilians and an ethnic Bashkir soldier were murdered by apparently drunk Russian soldiers; earlier, drunken Russian soldiers killed another Russian soldier, five Ingush villagers and even Ingushetia's Health Minister). Much larger and more deadly acts of hostility took place in

5106-490: The Russian SFSR . In 1944, on the orders of NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria , more than 500,000 Chechens, the Ingush and several other North Caucasian people were ethnically cleansed and deported to Siberia and to Central Asia . The official pretext was punishment for collaboration with the invading German forces during the 1940–1944 insurgency in Chechnya , despite the fact that many Chechens and Ingush were loyal to

5244-649: The Soviet Union . In November 1991, Yeltsin dispatched Internal Troops to Grozny , but they were forced to withdraw when Dudayev's forces surrounded them at the airport. After Chechnya made its initial declaration of sovereignty , the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic split in two in June 1992 amidst the armed conflict between the Ingush and Ossetians . The newly created Republic of Ingushetia then joined

5382-542: The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union published a notice in the local Chechen press that the elections were illegal. With a turnout of 72%, 90.1% voted for Dudayev. Dudayev won overwhelming popular support (as evidenced by the later presidential elections with high turnout and a clear Dudayev victory) to oust the interim administration supported by the central government. He became president and declared independence from

5520-761: The Taliban ("students" in Pashto ), referring to how most Taliban had grown up in refugee camps in Pakistan during the 1980s and were taught in the Saudi-backed Wahhabi madrassas , religious schools known for teaching a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Even before independence, the Turkish Cypriot community maintained its own paramilitary force (the Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı , or TMT), trained and equipped by

5658-685: The Turkish Army . In 1967, this force was renamed the Mücahit ("Mujahideen"), and in 1975 the Mücahit was renamed the Turkish Cypriot Security Force . In 1974, Turkey led a land invasion of Northern Cyprus with the aim of protecting the Turkish minority population after a Greek-inspired coup brought a threat of union of the island with Greece. Since then there has been no major fighting on Cyprus and

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5796-863: The West Bank . It had been reported in Israel that the AMB was formerly linked to the Fatah rather than the Hamas organization. Boko Haram has been active in Nigeria since it was founded in 2001. It existed in other forms before 2001. Although it initially limited its operations to northeast Nigeria, it has since expanded to other parts of Nigeria, and to Cameroon , Niger and Chad . Boko Haram seeks to implement sharia law across Nigeria. The currently active jihadist groups in Somalia derive from

5934-569: The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent Chechen declaration of independence , foreign fighters began entering the region and associating themselves with local rebels (most notably Shamil Basayev ). Many of the foreign fighters were veterans of the Soviet–Afghan War . The mujahideen also made a significant financial contribution to the separatists' cause; with their access to the immense wealth of Salafist charities like al-Haramein , they soon became an invaluable source of funds for

6072-466: The collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent Chechen declaration of independence, foreign fighters started entering the region and associated themselves with Chechen rebels, most notably Shamil Basayev with whom Ibn al-Khattab build up a friendship. Many of them were veterans of the Soviet–Afghan War and prior to the Russian invasion, they used their expertise to train Chechen fighters. During

6210-434: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. The Russian Federation was widely accepted as the successor state to the USSR , but it lost a significant amount of its military and economic power . Ethnic Russians made up more than 80% of the population of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , but significant ethnic and religious differences posed a threat of political disintegration in some regions. In

6348-490: The kontraktniki (contract soldiers, not conscripts) and members of the special service forces). The list which contains the names of the dead soldiers, drawn up by the Human Rights Center "Memorial", contains 4,393 names. In 2009, the official number of Russian troops who fought in the two wars and were still missing in Chechnya and presumed dead was some 700, while about 400 remains of the missing servicemen were said to have been recovered up to that point. The Russian military

6486-409: The 7th Muslim Brigade was entirely made up of native Bosnians) and consisted of somewhere between 300 and 1,500 volunteers. Enver Hadžihasanović , Lieutenant Colonel of the Bosnian Army's 3rd Corps , appointed Mahmut Karalić (Commandant), Asim Koričić (Chief of Staff) and Amir Kubura (Assistant Chief for Operational and Curricula) to lead the group. Some of the mujahideen funnelled arms and money into

6624-437: The Afghan communist government during the Afghan War (1978–92). Rival factions thereafter fell out among themselves, precipitating the rise of the Taliban and the opposing Northern Alliance . Arguably the best-known mujahideen outside the Islamic world are the various, loosely aligned Afghan opposition groups who initially rebelled against the government of the pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) during

6762-508: The Bosnian War. In 2015, former Human Rights Minister and Federation BiH Vice President Mirsad Kebo talked about numerous war crimes committed against Serbs by mujahideen in Bosnia and their links with current and past Muslim officials including former and current presidents of federation and presidents of parliament based on war diaries and other documented evidence. He gave evidence to the BiH federal prosecutor. The term mujahideen has often been used to refer to all separatist fighters in

6900-587: The ChRI was waging a Jihad ( struggle ) against Russia raised the spectre that Jihadis from other regions and even outside Russia would enter the war. Limited fighting occurred in the neighbouring a small republic of Ingushetia , mostly when Russian commanders sent troops over the border in pursuit of Chechen fighters, while as many as 200,000 refugees (from Chechnya and the conflict in North Ossetia ) strained Ingushetia's already weak economy. On several occasions, Ingush president Ruslan Aushev protested incursions by Russian soldiers and even threatened to sue

7038-437: The Chechen cause, turned hostile as a result of their Russian-esque culture and language, stronger affinity to Moscow than to Grozny, and a history of conflict with indigenous peoples such as the Chechens. The Kuban Cossacks started organizing themselves against the Chechens, including manning paramilitary roadblocks against infiltration of their territories. Meanwhile, the war in Chechnya spawned new forms of resistance to

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7176-531: The Chechen command withdrew from the area of Vedeno to the Chechen opposition-aligned village of Dargo and from there to Benoy . According to an estimate cited in a United States Army analysis report, between January and May 1995, when the Russian forces conquered most of the republic in the conventional campaign, their losses in Chechnya were approximately 2,800 killed, 10,000 wounded and more than 500 missing or captured. Some Chechen fighters infiltrated occupied areas, hiding in crowds of returning refugees. As

7314-401: The Chechen resistance, which had few resources of its own. Most of the mujahideen decided to remain in Chechnya after the withdrawal of Russian forces. In 1999, foreign fighters played an important role in the ill-fated Chechen incursion into Dagestan , where they suffered a decisive defeat and were forced to retreat back into Chechnya. The incursion provided the new Russian government with

7452-542: The December 1995 raid by the Chechens on the city of Gudermes . ) Throughout the span of the first Chechen war, Russian forces have been accused by human rights organizations of starting a brutal war with total disregard for humanitarian law , causing tens of thousands of unnecessary civilian casualties among the Chechen population. The main strategy in the Russian war effort had been to use heavy artillery and air strikes leading to numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians. This has led to Western and Chechen sources calling

7590-608: The El Mujahid Detachment. He was sentenced to three years of imprisonment for his failure to prevent or punish the cruel treatment of twelve captured Serb soldiers by the Mujahideen. Delic remained in the Detention Unit while appellate proceedings continued. Some individuals of the Bosnian Mujahideen, such as Abdelkader Mokhtari , Fateh Kamel , and Karim Said Atmani , gained particular prominence within Bosnia as well as international attention from various foreign governments. They were all North African volunteers with well established links to Islamic Fundamentalist groups before and after

7728-417: The Government of Philippines and ASG , BIFM, MILF , and MNLF factions between 1989 and 2012. Abu Sayyaf is an Islamic separatist group in the southern Philippines , formed in 1991. The group is known for its kidnappings of Western nationals and Filipinos, for which it has received several large ransom -payments. Some Abu Sayyaf members have studied or worked in Saudi Arabia and developed relations with

7866-535: The Jihad" was particularly happy about the presence of Mujahedeens in Bosnia and gave them full support. El Mujahid members claimed that in Bosnia they only have respect for Alija Izetbegovic and the head of the Bosnian Army Third Corps, Sakib Mahmuljin. The number of foreign Muslim volunteers in Bosnia was estimated at 4,000 in contemporary newspaper reports. Later research estimated the number to be about 400. They came from various places such as Saudi Arabia , Pakistan , Afghanistan , Jordan , Egypt , Iraq and

8004-451: The Persian Gulf and international jihadists were called to join the holy war against the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies. Though Somali Islamists did not use suicide bombing tactics before, the foreign elements of al-Shabaab are blamed for several suicide bombings . Egypt has a longstanding policy of securing the Nile River flow by destabilizing Ethiopia. Similarly, recent media reports said that Egyptian and Arab jihadists were

8142-553: The Persian Gulf. Jason Burke recounts that "as little as 25% of the money for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states." Mujahideen forces caused serious casualties to the Soviet forces, and made the war very costly for the Soviet Union. In 1989 the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan. In February 1989 the seven Sunni mujahideen factions formed an Afghan Interim Government (AIG) in Peshawar , The Interim Government had been in exile in Pakistan since 1988, led by Sibghatullah Mojaddedi , as an attempt for

8280-431: The Russian FSK state security organization (which was later converted to the FSB ) to fight for the Provisional Council forces. On 29 November, President Boris Yeltsin issued an ultimatum to all warring factions in Chechnya, ordering them to disarm and surrender. When the government in Grozny refused, Yeltsin ordered the Russian army to invade the region. Both the Russian government and military command never referred to

8418-451: The Russian Federation for his part in the war. The advance of the northern column was halted by the unexpected Chechen resistance at Dolinskoye and the Russian forces suffered their first serious losses. Units of Chechen fighters inflicted severe losses on the Russian troops. Deeper in Chechnya, a group of 50 Russian paratroopers was captured by the local Chechen militia , after being deployed by helicopters behind enemy lines to capture

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8556-456: The Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin . The raid forced a temporary stop in Russian military operations, giving the Chechens time to regroup and to prepare for the national militant campaign. The full-scale Russian attack led many of Dzhokhar Dudayev 's opponents to side with his forces and thousands of volunteers to swell the ranks of mobile militant units. Many others formed local self-defence militia units to defend their settlements in

8694-452: The Russian forces were usually tolerated by their superiors and were not punished even when investigated (the story of Vladimir Glebov serving as an example of such policy). Television and newspaper accounts widely reported largely uncensored images of the carnage to the Russian public. The Russian media coverage partially precipitated a loss of public confidence in the government and a steep decline in President Yeltsin 's popularity. Chechnya

8832-480: The Russian military set out to take the city using air power and artillery. At the same time, the Russian military accused the Chechen fighters of using civilians as human shields by preventing them from leaving the capital as it was bombarded. On 7 January 1995, the Russian Major-General Viktor Vorobyov was killed by mortar fire, becoming the first on a long list of Russian generals to be killed in Chechnya. On 19 January, despite many casualties, Russian forces seized

8970-406: The Russian military's bombardment of Grozny killed around 35,000 civilians, including 5,000 children and that the vast majority of those killed were ethnic Russians. While military casualties are not known, the Russian side admitted to having 2,000 soldiers killed or missing. The bloodbath of Grozny shocked Russia and the outside world, inciting severe criticism of the war. International monitors from

9108-407: The Russian strategy deliberate terror bombing on parts of Russia. According to Human Rights Watch, the campaign was "unparalleled in the area since World War II for its scope and destructiveness, followed by months of indiscriminate and targeted fire against civilians". Due to ethnic Chechens in Grozny seeking refuge among their respective teips in the surrounding villages of the countryside,

9246-484: The Soviet government and fought against the Nazis and they even received the highest military awards in the Soviet Union (e.g. Khanpasha Nuradilov and Movlid Visaitov ). In March 1944, the Soviet authorities abolished the Checheno-Ingush Republic. Eventually, Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev granted the Vainakh (Chechen and Ingush) peoples permission to return to their homeland and he restored their republic in 1957. Russia became an independent state after

9384-400: The Soviet period, some of Russia's approximately 100 nationalities were granted ethnic enclaves that had various formal federal rights attached. Relations of these entities with the federal government and demands for autonomy erupted into a major political issue in the early 1990s. Boris Yeltsin incorporated these demands into his 1990 election campaign by claiming that their resolution

9522-431: The Soviets as basmachi ('bandits'). These groups called themselves mojahed , describing themselves as standing for Islam. Other proto-mujahideen include Usman dan Fodio , Jahangir Khoja , and Muhammad Ahmed Al Mahdi . The name was most closely associated, however, with the mujahideen in Afghanistan , a coalition of guerrilla groups in Afghanistan that opposed the invading Soviet forces and eventually toppled

9660-441: The Syrian government and may even fall into the hands of al-Qaeda or Hamas. American officials assumed already in 2012 that Qaidat al-Jihad (a.k.a. Al-Qaeda in Iraq) has conducted bomb attacks against Syrian government forces, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said that al-Qaeda in Iraq members have gone to Syria, where the militants previously received support and weapons from the Syrian government in order to destabilize

9798-441: The US occupation of Iraq. On 23 April, one of the leaders of Fatah al-Islam , Abdel Ghani Jawhar, was killed during the Battle of Al-Qusayr , after he unintentionally blew himself up while making a bomb. In July 2012, Iraq's foreign minister again warned that members of al-Qaeda in Iraq were seeking refuge in Syria and moving there to fight. It is believed that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri condemned Assad. A member of

9936-639: The aim of asserting independence. The storming caused the death of the head of Grozny 's branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vitaliy Kutsenko, who was defenestrated or fell while trying to escape. This effectively dissolved the government of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic of the Soviet Union . Elections for the president and parliament of Chechnya were held on 27 October 1991. The day before,

10074-462: The armed rebellion". Jihadist leaders and intelligence sources said foreign fighters had begun to enter Syria only in February 2012. In June, it was reported that hundreds of foreign fighters, many linked to al-Qaeda, had gone to Syria to fight against Assad. When asked if the United States would arm the opposition, Hillary Clinton expressed doubts that such weapons would be effective in the toppling of

10212-577: The assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments. These foreign fighters became known as " Afghan Arabs " and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam . Although the mujahideen were aided by the Pakistani , American , British , Chinese and Saudi governments , the mujahideen's primary source of funding was private donors and religious charities throughout the Muslim world—particularly in

10350-545: The attack. Russian forces conducted an operation of zachistka , house-by-house searches throughout the entire village. Federal soldiers deliberately and arbitrarily attacked civilians and civilian dwellings in Samashki by shooting residents and burning houses with flame-throwers . They wantonly opened fire or threw grenades into basements where residents, mostly women, elderly persons and children, had been hiding. Russian troops intentionally burned many bodies, either by throwing

10488-558: The aviation and border troops established a military blockade of the republic, and eventually unmarked Russian aircraft began combat operations over Chechnya . The opposition forces, who were joined by Russian troops, launched a poorly organized assault on Grozny in mid-October 1994, followed by a second, larger attack on 26–27 November 1994. Despite Russian support, both attempts were unsuccessful. Chechen separatists succeeded in capturing some 20 Russian Ground Forces regulars and about 50 other Russian citizens who were covertly hired by

10626-476: The bodies into burning houses or by setting them on fire. A Chechen surgeon, Khassan Baiev , treated wounded in Samashki immediately after the operation and described the scene in his book: Dozens of charred corpses of women and children lay in the courtyard of the mosque, which had been destroyed. The first thing my eye fell on was the burned body of a baby, lying in fetal position... A wild-eyed woman emerged from

10764-539: The case of federal offensive action, officially numbering 5,000–6,000 armed men in late 1995. According to a UN report, the Chechen Armed Forces included a large number of child soldiers , some as young as 11 years old, and also included females. As the territory controlled by them shrank, the Chechens increasingly resorted to classic guerrilla warfare tactics, such as booby traps and mining roads in enemy-held territory. The use of improvised explosive devices

10902-456: The case of the First and Second Chechen Wars . However, in this article, mujahideen is used to refer to the foreign, non- Caucasian fighters who joined the separatists' cause for the sake of Jihad . They are often called Ansaar (helpers) in related literature dealing with this conflict to prevent confusion with the native fighters. Foreign mujahideen have played a part in both Chechen wars. After

11040-421: The city of Argun , moving their military headquarters first to surrounded Shali , then shortly after to the village of Serzhen'-Yurt as they were forced into the mountains and finally to Shamil Basayev 's ancestral stronghold of Vedeno . Chechnya's second-largest city of Gudermes was surrendered without a fight but the village of Shatoy was fought for and defended by the men of Ruslan Gelayev . Eventually,

11178-447: The city within 48 hours, or else it would be leveled in a massive aerial and artillery bombardment. He stated that federal forces would use strategic bombers (not used in Chechnya up to this point) and ballistic missiles . This announcement was followed by chaotic scenes of panic as civilians tried to flee before the army carried out its threat, with parts of the city ablaze and falling shells scattering refugee columns. The bombardment

11316-537: The city. When the Russians besieged the Chechen capital, thousands of civilians died from a week-long series of air raids and artillery bombardments in the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the destruction of Dresden . The initial assault on New Year's Eve 1994 ended in a big Russian defeat, resulting in many casualties and at first a nearly complete breakdown of morale in the Russian forces. The fighting claimed

11454-480: The coalition of the opposition factions based in north Chechnya launched a large-scale armed campaign to remove Dudayev's government. However, the issue of contention was not independence from Russia: even the opposition stated there was no alternative to an international boundary separating Chechnya from Russia. In 1992, Russian newspaper Moscow News noted that, just like most of the other seceding republics, other than Tatarstan , ethnic Chechens universally supported

11592-607: The community ( ummah ). The widespread use of the word in English began with reference to the guerrilla-type militant groups led by the Islamist Afghan fighters in the Soviet–Afghan War (see Afghan mujahideen ). The term now extends to other jihadist groups in various countries. In its roots, the Arabic word mujahideen refers to any person performing jihad . In its post-classical meaning, jihad refers to an act that

11730-481: The conflict as a war but instead a 'disarmament of illegal gangs' or a 'restoration of the constitutional order'. Beginning on 1 December, Russian forces openly carried out heavy aerial bombardments of Chechnya. On 11 December 1994, five days after Dudayev and Russian Minister of Defense Gen. Pavel Grachev of Russia had agreed to "avoid the further use of force", Russian forces entered the republic in order to "establish constitutional order in Chechnya and to preserve

11868-470: The country which Bosnia direly needed due to a United Nations-sanctioned arms embargo restricting the import of weapons into all of the republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . However, many of the mujahideen were extremely devout Muslims of the strict Salafi sect, which contrasted sharply with the relatively secular society of Bosnian Muslims . This led to friction between

12006-560: The developing trust between Gen. Romanov and the ChRI Chief of Staff Aslan Maskhadov , a former colonel in the Soviet Army ; in August, the two went to southern Chechnya to try to convince the local commanders to release Russian prisoners. In February 1996, federal and pro-Russian Chechen forces in Grozny opened fire on a massive pro-independence peace march of tens of thousands of people, killing

12144-488: The establishment of an independent Chechen state and, in 1995, during the heat of the First Chechen War, Khalid Delmayev, a Dudayev opponent belonging to an Ichkerian liberal coalition, stated that "Chechnya's statehood may be postponed... but cannot be avoided". Moscow covertly supplied opposition forces with finances, military equipment and mercenaries . Russia also suspended all civilian flights to Grozny while

12282-458: The federal army in ethnic or regional conflicts within Russia. Tatarstan president Mintimer Shaimiev vocally opposed the war and appealed to Yeltsin to stop it and return conscripts, warning the conflict was at risk of expanding across the Caucasus. Some regional and local legislative bodies called for the prohibition on the use of draftees in quelling internal conflicts, while others demanded

12420-399: The federal government. Opposition to the conscription of men from minority ethnic groups to fight in Chechnya was widespread among other republics, many of which passed laws and decrees on the subject. For example, the government of Chuvashia passed a decree providing legal protection to soldiers from the republic who refused to participate in the Chechen war and imposed limits on the use of

12558-567: The front of the vehicle. The bones were white; someone must have boiled the skull to remove the flesh. Major Vyacheslav Izmailov is said to have rescued at least 174 people from captivity on both sides in the war, was later involved in the tracing of missing persons after the war and in 2021 won the hero's prize at the Stalker Human Rights Film Festival in Moscow. The declaration by Chechnya's Chief Mufti Akhmad Kadyrov that

12696-662: The government while the Moro Islamic Liberation Front ( MILF ), a splinter group from the MNLF, was established to seek an Islamic state within the Philippines and is more radical and more aggressive. The conflict is ongoing ; casualty statistics vary for the conflict however the conservative estimates of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program indicate that at least 6,015 people were killed in armed conflict between

12834-428: The highly decentralized nature of Afghan society and strong loci of competing mujahideen and Pashtun tribal groups , particularly in isolated areas among the mountains. Eventually, the seven main mujahideen parties allied as the political bloc called Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen . However the parties were not under a single command and had ideological differences. Many Muslims from other countries assisted

12972-662: The incidents involving mujahideen. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber noted that the relationship between the 3rd Corps and the El Mujahedin detachment was not one of subordination but was instead close to overt hostility since the only way to control the detachment was to attack them as if they were a distinct enemy force. The ICTY Trial Chamber convicted Rasim Delic , the former chief of the Bosnian Army General Staff. The ICTY found that Delic had effective control over

13110-400: The key districts within hours in an operation prepared and led by Aslan Maskhadov (who named it Operation Zero) and Shamil Basayev (who called it Operation Jihad). The fighters then laid siege to the Russian posts and bases and the government compound in the city centre, while a number of Chechens deemed to be Russian collaborators were rounded up, detained and, in some cases, executed. At

13248-568: The language they spoke, but also because of their fighting methods. The various foreign, Muslim volunteers were primarily organized into an umbrella detachment of the 7th Muslim Brigade , which was a brigade of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina , based in Zenica . This independent subdivision colloquially known as El-Mudžahid , was composed exclusively of foreign nationals and not Bosnians (whereas

13386-637: The last months of 2007, the influence of foreign fighters became apparent again when Dokka Umarov proclaimed the Caucasus Emirate being fought for by the Caucasian Mujahadeen , a pan-Caucasian Islamic state of which Chechnya was to be a province. This move caused a rift in the resistance movement between those supporting the Emirate and those who were in favour of preserving the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria . The neologism jihadists may correspond to

13524-510: The late 1970s. At the DRA's request, the Soviet Union brought forces into the country to aid the government in 1979. The mujahideen fought against Soviet and DRA troops during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989). Afghanistan's resistance movement originated in chaos and, at first, regional warlords waged virtually all of its fighting locally. As warfare became more sophisticated, outside support and regional coordination grew. The basic units of mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect

13662-532: The lives of an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 Russian soldiers, mostly barely trained conscripts; the worst losses were inflicted on the 131st 'Maikop' Motor Rifle Brigade , which was destroyed in the fighting near the central railway station. Despite the early Chechen defeat of the New Year's assault and the many further casualties that the Russians had suffered, Grozny was eventually conquered by Russian forces after an urban warfare campaign. After armored assaults failed,

13800-506: The lowland areas and then into the mountains. In what was dubbed the worst massacre in the war, the OMON and other federal forces killed up to 300 civilians while seizing the border village of Samashki on 7 April (several hundred more were detained and beaten or otherwise tortured). In the southern mountains, the Russians launched an offensive along all the front on 15 April, advancing in large columns of 200–300 vehicles. The ChRI forces defended

13938-615: The mujahideen and the Bosnians. Foreign volunteers in Bosnia have been accused of committing war crimes during the conflict. However, the ICTY has never issued indictments against mujahideen fighters. Instead, the ICTY indicted some Bosnian Army commanders on the basis of superior criminal responsibility. The ICTY acquitted Amir Kubura and Enver Hadžihasanović of the Bosnian 3rd Corps of all charges related to

14076-632: The mujahideen members while fighting and training in the war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The 1990s are a transitional period between the Mujahideen outfits forming part of the proxy wars between the Cold War superpowers and the emergence of contemporary jihadism in the wake of the US " War on Terror " and the " Arab Spring ". Al-Qaeda saw its formative period during this time, and jihadism formed part of

14214-588: The nation continues to be an independent country, though strongly linked with Turkey militarily and politically. While more than one group in Iran has called itself mujahideen, the most famous is the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI; Persian : Mojāhedin-e Khalq), an Islamic organization that advocates for the overthrow of the leadership of the Iranian Republic . The group has taken part in multiple well-known conflicts in

14352-467: The number of Russian dead at close to 1,000. Thousands of troops were either taken prisoner or surrounded and largely disarmed, their heavy weapons and ammunition commandeered by Chechen fighters. On 19 August, despite the presence of 50,000 to 200,000 Chechen civilians and thousands of federal servicemen in Grozny, the Russian commander Konstantin Pulikovsky gave an ultimatum for Chechen fighters to leave

14490-473: The number of active mujahideen at 3,200. In Bangladesh , the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen was an Islamist organisation that was officially banned by the government of Bangladesh in February 2005 after attacks on NGOs . It struck back in mid-August when it detonated 500 bombs at 300 locations throughout Bangladesh. The term mujahideen is sometimes applied to fighters who joined the insurgency after

14628-607: The original Arabic mujahedeen . In India , an outfit calling itself the Indian Mujahideen came to light in 2008 with multiple large scale terror attacks. On 26 November 2008, a group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for a string of attacks across Mumbai . The Weekly Standard claimed, "Indian intelligence believes the Indian Mujahideen is a front group created by Lashkar-e-Taiba and

14766-609: The picture in regional conflicts of the 1990s, including the Yugoslav Wars , the Somali Civil War , the  First Nagorno-Karabakh War , the First Chechen War , etc. During the Bosnian war 1992–1995, many foreign Muslims came to Bosnia as mujahideen. Muslims around the world who shared mujahideen beliefs and respected the author of Islamic Declaration come to the aid of fellow Muslims. Alija Izetbegovic , author of Islamic Declaration and in his younger days author of poem "To

14904-422: The powers that were reserved for local and federal government. The only federal subjects that did not sign the treaty were Chechnya and Tatarstan . Eventually, in early 1994, Yeltsin signed a special political accord with Mintimer Shaeymiev , the president of Tatarstan, granting many of its demands for greater autonomy for the republic within Russia. Thus, Chechnya remained the only federal subject that did not sign

15042-708: The region, and has been at odds with the conservative government of the Islamic Republic of Iran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution . Another mujahideen was the Mujahedin-e Islam, an Islamic party led by Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani . It formed part of the Iranian National Front during the time of Mohammed Mosaddeq 's oil nationalization , but broke away from Mosaddeq over his allegedly un-Islamic policies. From 1947 to 1961, local mujahideen fought against Burmese government soldiers in an attempt to have

15180-512: The republic. Chechen resistance against Russian imperialism has its origins from 1785 during the time of Sheikh Mansur , the first imam (leader) of the Caucasian peoples . He united various North-Caucasian nations under his command to resist Russian invasions and expansion. Following long local resistance during the 1817–1864 Caucasian War , Imperial Russian forces defeated the Chechens and annexed their lands and deported thousands to

15318-403: The roads leading to the city, Russian troops eventually gave up on trying to reach the trapped soldiers in the city. Chechen fighters subsequently withdrew from the city on orders from the high command. In the same month in March, Chechen fighters and Russian federal troops clashed near the village of Samashki . The losses on the Russian side amounted to 28 killed and 116 wounded. On April 16,

15456-467: The ruins of the Chechen presidential palace , which had been fought over for more than three weeks as the Chechens abandoned their positions in the ruins of the downtown area. The battle for the southern part of the city continued until the official end on 6 March 1995. By the estimates of Yeltsin's human rights adviser Sergei Kovalev , about 27,000 civilians died in the first five weeks of fighting. The Russian historian and general Dmitri Volkogonov said

15594-524: The same time, Russian troops in the cities of Argun and Gudermes were also surrounded in their garrisons. Several attempts by the armored columns to rescue the units trapped in Grozny were repelled with heavy Russian casualties (the 276th Motorized Regiment of 900 men suffered 50% casualties in a two-day attempt to reach the city centre). Russian military officials said that more than 200 soldiers had been killed and nearly 800 wounded in five days of fighting, and that an unknown number were missing; Chechens put

15732-527: The sect grew ever larger until it was not only conducting bandit raids but even controlling areas in Afghanistan. The first known use of the word mujahideen to refer to insurgent Islamic extremism (what has neologically been called jihadism ) was supposedly in the late 19th century, in 1887, by Thomas Patrick Hughes (1838–1911). In Central Asia from 1916 to the 1930s, Islamic guerrillas were opponents of Tsarism and Bolshevism and were referred to by

15870-400: The territorial integrity of Russia." Grachev boasted he could topple Dudayev in a couple of hours with a single airborne regiment, and proclaimed that it will be "a bloodless blitzkrieg , that would not last any longer than 20 December." On 11 December 1994, Russian forces launched a three-pronged ground attack towards Grozny . The main attack was temporarily halted by the deputy commander of

16008-547: The threat of jihad was made openly and repeatedly in the months preceding the Battle of Baidoa . On 23 December 2006, Islamists, for the first time, called upon international fighters to join their cause. The term mujahideen is now openly used by the post-ICU resistance against the Ethiopians and the TFG. Harakat al-Shabaab Mujahideen is said to have non-Somali foreigners in its ranks, particularly among its leadership. Fighters from

16146-614: The treaty. Neither Yeltsin nor the Chechen government attempted any serious negotiations and the situation deteriorated into a full-scale conflict. Meanwhile, on 6 September 1991, militants of the All-National Congress of the Chechen People (NCChP) party, created by the former Soviet Air Force general Dzhokhar Dudayev , stormed a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , with

16284-491: The various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. Some groups of these veterans became significant players in later conflicts in and around the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden , originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia , was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with

16422-422: The vendetta system which protected the Chechens to a certain extent. From 1991 to 1994, tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity left the republic . During the undeclared Chechen civil war , factions both sympathetic and opposed to Dzhokhar Dudayev fought for power, sometimes in pitched battles with the use of heavy weapons. In March 1993, the opposition attempted a coup d'état , but their attempt

16560-457: The war continued, the Chechens resorted to mass hostage -takings, attempting to influence the Russian public and leadership. In June 1995, a group led by the maverick field commander Shamil Basayev took more than 1,500 people hostage in southern Russia in the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis ; about 120 Russian civilians died before a ceasefire was signed after negotiations between Basayev and

16698-530: The withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya most of the mujahideen decided to remain in the country, including Khattab who married a woman from Dagestan . In 1999, foreign fighters played an important role in the War of Dagestan . Shamil Basayev and Khattab had created the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade which was composed of Chechen fighters. The invasion was started in support of

16836-660: The withdrawal of both sides' forces from Grozny, the creation of joint headquarters to preclude looting in the city, the withdrawal of all federal forces from Chechnya by 31 December 1996, and a stipulation that any agreement on the relations between the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the Russian federal government need not be signed until late 2001. Human rights organizations accused Russian forces of engaging in indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force whenever they encountered resistance, resulting in numerous civilian deaths. (According to Human Rights Watch , Russian artillery and rocket attacks killed at least 267 civilians during

16974-968: Was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , a Jordanian national who would go on to assume the leadership of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Various Islamic groups, often referred to as mujahideen and jihadists, have participated in the Syrian civil war . Alawites , the sect to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs, are considered to be heretics in Sunni Muslim circles. In this sense, radical Sunni jihadist organizations and their affiliates have been anti-Assad. Jihadist leaders and intelligence sources said foreign fighters had begun to enter Syria only in February 2012. In May 2012, Syria's U.N. envoy Bashar Ja'afari declared that dozens of foreign fighters from Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Britain, France elsewhere had been captured or killed, and urged Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to stop "their sponsorship of

17112-432: Was 6,000, but according to other estimates, the number of Russian military deaths was as high as 14,000. According to various estimates, the number of Chechen military deaths was approximately 3,000–10,000, the number of Chechen civilian deaths was between 30,000 and 100,000. Over 200,000 Chechen civilians may have been injured, more than 500,000 people were displaced , and cities and villages were reduced to rubble across

17250-670: Was a high priority. There was an urgent need for a law to clearly define the powers of each federal subject. Such a law was passed on 31 March 1992, when Yeltsin and Ruslan Khasbulatov , then chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet and an ethnic Chechen himself, signed the Federation Treaty bilaterally with 86 out of 88 federal subjects. In almost all cases, demands for greater autonomy or independence were satisfied by concessions of regional autonomy and tax privileges. The treaty outlined three basic types of federal subjects and

17388-472: Was crushed by force. A month later, Dudayev introduced direct presidential rule, and in June 1993 dissolved the Chechen parliament to avoid a referendum on a vote of non-confidence . In late October 1992, Russian forces dispatched to the zone of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict were ordered to move to the Chechen border; Dudayev, who perceived this as "an act of aggression against the Chechen Republic", declared

17526-600: Was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. Department of State . On 12 November 2018, the Department of State blacklisted the Al-Mujahidin Brigades (AMB) over its alleged Hezbollah associations, as well as Jawad Nasrallah, son of Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah , from using the United States financial system and further naming him a terrorist associated with evidence of his involvement in attacks against Israel in

17664-446: Was during this time that the Russians succeeded in eliminating the most prominent mujahideen commanders Ibn al-Khattab and Abu al-Walid . The foreign battalion was mostly composed of Arabs , however, there were also Caucasian and Kurdish fighters in relatively small numbers. All known Emirs (leaders) are deceased. Its first Emir was Ibn Al-Khattab (Saudi) who was killed in March 2002 and succeeded by Abu al-Walid (Saudi), who

17802-408: Was however soon halted by the ceasefire brokered by General Alexander Lebed , Yeltsin 's national security adviser, on 22 August. Gen. Lebed called the ultimatum, issued by General Pulikovsky (replaced by then), a "bad joke". During eight hours of subsequent talks, Lebed and Maskhadov drafted and signed the Khasavyurt Accord on 31 August 1996. It included: technical aspects of demilitarization ,

17940-720: Was killed in April 2004. His successor became Abu Hafs al-Urduni (Jordanian) who was killed in November 2006. He was succeeded by Muhannad (Saudi), who was killed in a clash with security forces in the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt on 21 April 2011. Several weeks later, his successor Abdulla Kurd (Kurdish) was also killed. The battalion was split into multiple units of Mujahideen commanded by their respective Emirs which disbanded by 2012. First Chechen War [REDACTED]   Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Foreign volunteers : [REDACTED]   Russia 1994–1995 1996 The First Chechen War , also referred to as

18078-455: Was notorious for hiding casualties. Let me tell you about one specific case. I knew for sure that on this day – it was the end of February or the beginning of March 1995 – forty servicemen of the Joint Group were killed. And they bring me information about fifteen. I ask: "Why don't you take into account the rest?" They hesitated: "Well, you see, 40 is a lot. We'd better spread those losses over

18216-415: Was one of the heaviest burdens on Yeltsin's 1996 presidential election campaign . The protracted war in Chechnya, especially many reports of extreme violence against civilians, ignited fear and contempt of Russia among other ethnic groups in the federation. One of the most notable war crimes committed by the Russian army is the Samashki massacre , in which it is estimated that up to 300 civilians died during

18354-548: Was overthrown and most mujahideen factions signed the Peshawar Accords . However, the mujahideen could not establish a functional united government, and many of the larger mujahideen groups began to fight each other over power in Kabul . After several years of devastating fighting, in a small Pashtun village, a mullah named Mohammed Omar organized a new armed movement with the backing of Pakistan. This movement became known as

18492-455: Was particularly noteworthy; they also exploited a combination of mines and ambushes . On 6 October 1995, Gen. Anatoliy Romanov , the federal commander in Chechnya at the time, was critically injured and paralyzed in a bomb blast in Grozny . Suspicion of responsibility for the attack fell on rogue elements of the Russian military, as the attack destroyed hopes for a permanent ceasefire based on

18630-410: Was raped in front of her father. I heard of one case in which the mercenary grabbed a newborn baby, threw it among each other like a ball, then shot it dead in the air. Leaving the village for the hospital in Grozny, I passed a Russian armored personnel carrier with the word SAMASHKI written on its side in bold, black letters. I looked in my rearview mirror and to my horror saw a human skull mounted on

18768-569: Was the main perpetrator of attacks on Burmese authorities positioned on the Bangladesh–Myanmar border . In 1969, political tensions and open hostilities developed between the Government of the Philippines and jihadist rebel groups. The Moro National Liberation Front ( MNLF ) was established by University of the Philippines professor Nur Misuari to condemn the killings of more than 60 Filipino Muslims and later became an aggressor against

18906-437: Was to be inaugurated for his second term as Russian president and when most of the Russian troops were moved south due to what was planned as their final offensive against remaining mountainous Chechen strongholds, the Chechens subsequently launched another surprise attack on Grozny. Despite Russian troops in and around Grozny numbering approximately 12,000, more than 1,500 Chechen guerrillas (whose numbers soon swelled) overran

19044-605: Was widely alleged that Russian troops, especially those belonging to the Internal Troops (MVD), committed numerous and in part systematic acts of torture and summary executions on Chechen civilians; they were often linked to zachistka ("cleansing" raids on town districts and villages suspected of harboring boyeviki – militants). Humanitarian and aid groups chronicled persistent patterns of Russian soldiers killing, raping and looting civilians at random, often in disregard of their nationality. Chechen fighters took hostages on

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