Ibn al-Khattab | |
|---|---|
ابن الخطاب | |
 | |
| 1st Emir of theArab Mujahideen in Chechnya | |
| In office 2000–2002 | |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Abu al-Walid |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 14 April 1969 Arar, Saudi Arabia |
| Died | 20 March 2002 (aged 32) Chechnya, Russia |
| Nicknames |
|
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Afghan mujahideen Azerbaijan United Tajik Opposition Bosnian mujahideenChechen mujahideen |
| Years of service | 1987–2002 |
| Commands |  Islamic International Brigade |
| Battles/wars | |
Samir Salih Abdullah al-Suwaylim[a] (14 April 1969 – 20 March 2002), commonly known asIbn al-Khattab,[b] was a Saudi-bornpan-Islamist militant.[1] He is best known for his involvement in theFirst andSecond Chechen War, which he participated in after moving toChechnya at the invitation of theAkhmadov brothers.[2]
The origins and real identity of Khattab remained a mystery to most until after his death, when his brother gave an interview to the press.[3] His death in 2002 had followed his exposure to a poisoned letter, which had been delivered to him by a personal courier who was secretly recruited by theFederal Security Service (FSB) of theRussian Federation.
According to American scholar Muhammad al-Ubaydi who specializes in the study ofmilitant Islam, his continued relevance is due to the fact that he was the internationalistSalafi jihadist fighter par excellence: he was born inSaudi Arabia and had taken part in conflicts inAfghanistan,Azerbaijan,Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chechnya,Dagestan, andTajikistan, and who in addition to his nativeArabic was able to communicate inEnglish,Kurdish,Pashto,Persian, andRussian. Compounding this was his charismatic appealing approach towards attracting non-Arab Muslims to fight for his cause and his pioneering use of modern media dissemination techniques to promote jihad, particularly by way of publishing military videos for propaganda purposes.[4]
Khattab's background is a topic of debate, with some sources placing his year of birth as 1963 in Jordan as well as his birth name being Habib Abd al-Rahman Ibn al-Khattab, to a family ofJordanian-Circassian origin.[5][6] Another claim says Khattab was born in 1969 as Samir bin Salah al-Suwailim in Arar, Saudi Arabia, to aBedouin father of the Arab Suwaylim tribe, also found in Jordan, and a mother ofSyrian Turkmen descent. Regardless of the claims, Khattab self-identified as anArab and later identified with both Saudi Arabia and Jordan as his countries.[7]
He was described as a brilliant student, scoring 94 percent in the secondary school examination, and initially wanted to continue his higher studies in theUnited States, even if he was already fond of Islamic periodicals and tapes as opposed to his siblings, to the extent they renamed him after the second caliphUmar ibn al-Khattab. He would retain the title during his militant activities, which began in 1987, by joining theAfghan Arabs against theAfghan Government Forces and theSoviet Army.[8]
At the age of 17, Khattab left Saudi Arabia to participate in the fight against forces of theRepublic of Afghanistan and theSoviet Union during theSoviet–Afghan War and the followingAfghan Civil War. During this time, he lost the majority of his right hand after an accident withIEDs. He never visited the hospital, and he healed it by himself usinghoney, as per theProphetic medicine.[9][10] He would participate in the botchedBattle of Jalalabad in 1989.
Khattab, while the leader ofIslamic International Brigade, publicly admitted that he spent the period between 1989 and 1994 in Afghanistan and that he had metOsama bin Laden andZawahiri. In March 1994, Khattab arrived in Afghanistan and touredfighter training camps inKhost province. He returned toAfghanistan with the first group ofChechen militants in May 1994. Khattab underwent training in Afghanistan and had close connections withal-Qaeda. Several hundred Chechens eventually trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.[11][12]
Armenian sources claim that in 1992 he was one of many Chechen volunteers who aidedAzerbaijan in the embattled region ofNagorno-Karabakh, where he allegedly metShamil Basayev. However, the AzerbaijaniMinistry of Defense denied any involvement by Khattab in theFirst Nagorno-Karabakh War.[13][14]
From 1993 to 1995, Khattab left to fight alongsideIslamic opposition in theTajikistan Civil War. Before leaving forTajikistan in 1994, al-Khattab gaveAbdulkareem Khadr a pet rabbit of his own, which was promptly named Khattab.[15]
In an interview, Khattab once mentioned he had also been involved in theBosnian War. The fragment of this interview in which he makes this statement can be found in the 2004BBC documentaryThe Smell of Paradise, though he did not specify his exact role or the duration of his presence there.[16]
According to Khattab's brother, he first heard about the Chechen conflict on an Afghan television channel in 1995; that same year, he entered Chechnya, posing as a television reporter. He was credited as being a pioneer in producing video footage of Chechen rebel combat operations in order to aidfundraising efforts as well as international recruitment, and he himself achieved notoriety in 1996 when he himself filmed an ambush he led against a Russian armored column inShatoy.[17] Not long after his arrival he married an ethnicLak woman from Dagestan, the sister ofNadyr Khachiliev, an Islamist and leader of the Union of the Muslims of Russia, which has been seen as a way to already internationalize the Chechen struggle.[18]
During theFirst Chechen War, Khattab participated in fighting Russian federal forces and acted as an intermediary financier between foreignMuslim funding sources and the local fighters. To help secure funding and spread the message of resistance, he was frequently accompanied by at least one cameraman.
His units were credited with several devastatingambushes on Russian columns in the Chechen mountains. His first action was the October 1995 ambush of a Russianconvoy which killed 47 soldiers.[19] Khattab gained early fame and a great notoriety in Russia for his April 1996ambush of a large armored column in a narrow gorge of Yaryshmardy, nearShatoy, which killed up to 100 soldiers and destroyed some two or three dozen vehicles.[20] In another ambush, nearVedeno, at least 28 Russian troops were killed.[21]
In 1996 on the order from Aslan MaskhadovPresident of Chechnya, Khattab was appointed as the Chief of Military Training Center of the Central Front of theChRI Armed Forces.[22]
In the course of the war,Shamil Basayev became his closest ally and personal friend. He was also associated withZelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who gave Khattab two of the highest Chechen military awards, the Order of Honor and the Brave Warrior medal, and promoted him to the rank ofgeneral in 1997.[23]
A senior Chechen commander by the name of Izmailov told press how Khattab urged restraint, citing theQuran, when at the end of the war the Chechens wanted to shoot those they considered traitors.[24]
After the conclusion of the war, Khattab, by then wanted byInterpol on Russia's request, became a prominentwarlord and commanded theChechen Mujahideen, his ownprivate army with a group of Arabs, Turks, Chechens, Kurds, and other foreign fighters who had come to participate in the war. He set up a network ofparamilitary camps in the mountainous parts of therepublic that trained not only Chechens, but alsoMuslims from theNorth Caucasian Russian republics andCentral Asia.
On 22 December 1997, over a year after the signing of theKhasav-Yurt treaty and the end of the first war in Chechnya, the mujahideen and a group of Dagestani rebels raided the base of the 136th ArmouredBrigade of the 58th Division of theRussian Army inBuinaksk,Dagestan.[25]
In 1998, along withShamil Basayev, Khattab created or reorganized the Mazhlis ul Shura of the United Mujahids (Consultative Council of United Holy Warriors), the Congress of the Peoples of Dagestan and Ichkeriya, theSpecial Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR), theIslamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB) (also known as the Islamic Peacekeeping Army) and a group of female suicide bombers, theRiyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Shahids.[26] In August–September 1999, they led theIIPB's incursions into Dagestan, which resulted in the deaths of at least several hundred people and effectively started theSecond Chechen War.
AFederal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) investigation named Khattab as the mastermind behind the September 1999Russian apartment bombings.[27] However, on 14 September 1999, Khattab told the RussianInterfax news agency inGrozny that he had nothing to do with theMoscow explosions; he was quoted as saying,"We would not like to be akin to those who kill sleeping civilians with bombs and shells."[28]
Some journalists and historians, both western and Russian, have claimed that the bombings were in fact a "false flag" attackperpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimizethe resumption of military activities in Chechnya. Among them areJohns Hopkins University scholarDavid Satter,[29] historiansYuri Felshtinsky,[30]Amy Knight[31][32] andKaren Dawisha,[33] and former FSB officerAlexander Litvinenko who was believed to bepoisoned by Russian agents in London.
However, the invasion of Dagestan in August 1999 was the first and the main casus belli for the Second Chechen War.
During the course of the war in 2000, Khattab took over the leadership of theChechen Mujahideen and participated in leading his militia against Russian forces in Chechnya, as well as managing the influx of foreign fighters and money and also planning of attacks in Russia.
He led or commanded several devastating attacks during this year, such asthe mountain battle, which killed at least 67Russian paratroopers,[34] and theattack on the OMON convoy near Zhani-Vedeno, which killed at least 3 Russian Interior Ministry troops.[35] During the war, he produced theRussian Hell video, which showcases the torture and execution of Russian soldiers and would later become popular among Islamist militants internationally.[36][37]
Khattab later survived a heavy-calibre bullet wound to the stomach and alandmine explosion.
Khattab died of poisoning on 20 March 2002, when a Dagestani messenger hired by the RussianFSB gave Khattab apoisoned letter the day before. Chechen sources said that the letter was coated with "a fast-actingnerve agent, possiblysarin or a derivative".[38][39] The messenger, a Dagestani double agent known as Ibragim Alauri, was turned by the FSB on his routine courier mission. Khattab would receive letters from his mother in Saudi Arabia, and the FSB found this to be the most opportune moment to kill Khattab. It was reported that the operation to recruit and turn Ibragim Alauri to work for the FSB and deliver the poisoned letter took some six months of preparation. Alauri was reportedly tracked down and killed a month later inBaku,Azerbaijan onShamil Basayev's orders.[40] Ibn Al-Khattab was succeeded by EmirAbu al-Walid.[41]
He was falsely reported dead whenOmar Mohammed Ali Al-Rammah, a Yemeni prisoner atGuantanamo Bay, faced the allegations that he witnessed Khattab being killed in an ambush inDuisi, a village in thePankisi Gorge ofGeorgia on 28 April 2002.[42][43]
"Khattabka" (хаттабка) is now a popular Russian and Chechen name for an improvisedhand grenade, made from eitherVOG-17 orVOG-25 grenades.[44]
Due to his fierce opposition and devotion against Russia, he was nicknamed the Lion ofChechnya.
According toFawaz Gerges who citedSaif al-Adel andAbu Walid al Masri's diaries, Ibn al-Khattab andOsama bin Laden operated separate groups, as they defined the enemy differently, but tried to pull each other to their own battle plans.[45] A part of bin Laden's interest was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction (or at leastdirty bombs) from the Russian arsenal through al-Khattab's contacts.[45]
According toRichard A. Clarke, "Bin Laden sent Afghan Arab veterans, money, and arms to fellow Saudi Ibn al-Khattab in Chechnya, which seemed like a perfect theater for jihad."[46]
He wrote his memoirs entitledMemories of Amir Khattab: The Experience of the Arab Muhajireen in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.[47]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)The detainee witnessed the ambush that killedIbn al Khattab
The detainee was captured in a violent road ambush byGeorgia Security Forces inDuisi, Georgia [ka] on 28 April 2002.