BACKGROUND: Doku Umarov was born in 1964 in the village of Kharsenoy of the mountainous South-Eastern Chechen Shatoy district. He comes from the Mulkkhoy teyp (clan) and is an adherent of Sufi Islam, the Qadiriyya brotherhood of sheik Kunta-Haji. A graduate of the Oil Institute in Grozny, he was involved in business in western Siberia until 1994. During the first Russo-Chechen War (1994-1996), Umarov took an active part in resistance activities in Ruslan Gelayev’s division. In 1998 he supported Aslan Maskhadov in armed clashes with jihadist units. He is generally known for his sceptical or even negative stance towards so-called global jihad. During the interwar period (1996-1999), rumours surfaced in Chechnya about Umarov’s participation in kidnappings; according to other sources, he provided protection to some related kidnappers. For this, he was allegedly fired by Maskhadov from the post of Chief of the Security Council of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria before the 1999 Russian invasion. Umarov, who was seriously wounded in the face during the fighting retreat from Grozny in March 2000, took command of the south-western front in 2002. Many of his relatives, including his elderly father and his brothers, were kidnapped by pro-Moscow Chechen divisions, and nothing is known about their fate to this day. Umarov is regarded as a capable soldier who enjoys the recognition of his fellow combatants. Allegations of his participation in purely terrorist attacks (e.g. in Beslan) coming from Russian sources have not been confirmed independently. Umarov has never himself claimed involvement in terrorism; moreover, he openly condemned Basayev for organizing the Beslan attack. Alongside with Shamil Basayev, he was considered the last of the Mohicans of the “old guard” of Chechen “brigade generals”. In recent years, he participated together with Basayev in the formation and implementation of the new Chechen policy of expanding armed resistance in the entire North Caucasus. The successful attack on the Ingush city of Nazran and several other towns in 2004 is likely to have been directed by Umarov. The new Chechen president attempted to set forth his goals and priorities in his first public statement on 23 June 2006, published on the Chechenpress.org web portal. He placed great emphasis on maintaining continuity with Sadulayev’s – and more broadly understood, with Maskhadov’s – balanced military and political strategy. Just like his young predecessor, Umarov is a proponent of the idea of Chechen national independence and speaks of the need for strengthening ties with “North Caucasian brothers” against the common enemy, Russia, which he calls “the only colonial empire on earth.” “The vision for the end of the Russo-Chechen war”, says the newly appointed president, is for “Russia to leave us alone, recognising our right to independence. I, just like my predecessors, do not think that Chechens are any less deserving than any other people of living in their own independent state.” Something new in Umarov’s statements is the plan of “noticeably expanding the zone of armed activity that should include not only the Caucasus, but also many regions of Russia.” In conclusion, however, Umarov notes that: “The goals of our blows and attacks will be exclusively military and police objectives. Regardless of the fact that the Russian occupiers have been engaged for many years in genocide against the civilian population in Chechnya and the entire territory of the northern Caucasus, I will vigorously oppose any attacks against civilian targets.” Another of Umarov’s priorities is the fight against collaborators and traitors in his own ranks, that he refers to in the Soviet tradition as “police” (Polizei) – that is what local police officers were called who were recruited during World War II in Nazi-occupied territory:

IMPLICATIONS: Of key importance for understanding the direction of further developments of the Chechen resistance is awareness of certain tendencies that are tied more to circumstances than to personalities. In this regard, significant changes have occurred in the strategic thinking of the separatists since the middle of 2004. Aslan Maskhadov, aware of the tragic consequences of the Dagestan invasion of 1999, had opposed any attempts to “export” the war beyond Chechen territory. Nonetheless, less than a year before his death, he was present at the first institutional attempts to achieve a regionalization of the war by the creation of “Caucasian sectors” in Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan. In the Summer of 2005, Sadulayev issued a government decree announcing the creation of a United Caucasian Front subordinate to the Chechen supreme command. This was done with the support of the most influential field commanders –Umarov and Basayev, who had been intensely building resistance support for several years on their own initiative, with Umarov’s attempts focused on Ingushetia and the areas of the northwest Caucasus, relying on local natives. A clear rationale can be seen behind the separatists’ recent efforts: if the Chechen resistance movement is too exhausted to be able in the foreseeable future to strike Moscow a meaningful military or political blow with its own forces, then there is no reason not to try to attain this goal by using potential hidden in neighbouring areas where dissatisfaction with Moscow and local regimes is growing ever stronger. Spreading the resistance onto the territory of neighbouring republics would also bring about an expansion of the geographical base that the Chechen resistance has the possibility of relying on. From an intermediate perspective, Chechen financial, human, and technical investments in the emerging resistance groups in neighbouring areas, and especially in the northwest Caucasus, could also bring economic, strategic and demographic advantages. The ultimate goal of the message was - and still is - to “force the Kremlin into peace”, that is, to create a situation that would force the Kremlin to negotiations. It would seem that after the Beslan School Siege, Basayev himself came to realize that isolated terrorist acts in Russia’s interior were counterproductive for the resistance, and that they strengthen the internal and external position of the Putin regime. The ruthless reaction of federal authorities who did not shrink from using deadly gas in the Moscow Dubrovka theatre, or rocket attacks against buildings with hundreds of their own citizens, as in Beslan, apparently forced Basayev to realise that trying to blackmail Putin by terrorist means was bound to fail. While the coordinated policies of Western countries since September 11th have led to a noticeable drop in financial support from various Salafi/Jihadist funds and foundations, the international reputation of the Chechen resistance has also been immensely harmed, not least of all because of the Islamist tinge of the attacks mainly against civilian targets in Russia. The days when the West was putting serious pressure on the Kremlin to resolve the conflict peacefully are over, and that is contrary to the long-term interests of the separatists.

CONCLUSIONS: If terrorist attacks in Russia have virtually come to a halt, this is better explained by a general consensus among the rebel leadership than by strict subordination in their ranks. The regionalization of the conflict has been made a priority. It is very unlikely that Doku Umarov, a mature person with an established worldview, will change his mind in the aftermath of the murder of Shamil Basayev, a colleague with whom relations have almost never been free from problems (in contrast to Sadulayev). Hence the key question is whether the new generation of Chechen fighters, which is bound to take leading position in the resistance soon, will share the relative pragmatism of most rebel leaders, or if their goals will be driven by the mere willingness to take revenge on a more or less abstractly defined enemy. It is obvious that in spite of expectations, neither the deaths of secularist or traditionalist leaders such as Maskhadov or Sadulayev, nor the liquidation of important jihadists such as Khattab, Abu al-Walid, Abu al-Saif, etc. in recent years have led to the collapse of the armed resistance. This is a key argument suggesting that regardless of changes in command, the resistance is unlikely to falter.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Dr. Emil Souleimanov is senior lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He is author of “An Endless War: The Russian-Chechen Conflict in Perspective“ (Peter Lang, autumn 2006)