Saudi warlord leads Russian bombers

A SAUDI Islamic militant based in the breakaway republic of Chechnya is suspected of being behind last Friday’s bomb attack on the Moscow metro, which killed 39 people and wounded more than 130.

Abu-al-Walid al-Ghamidi, 36, has been identified by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, as one of the most powerful figures in the Chechen rebel leadership. As the commander of several hundred Arabs fighting alongside the rebels, he is thought to have been responsible for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that have killed more than 200 people in just over a year.

He is also believed to have been one of the masterminds of the Moscow theatre siege of October 2002, which ended with the deaths of 40 Chechen terrorists and 129 of their hostages.

Walid, a follower of the Wahhabi sect that dominates worship in Saudi Arabia, signalled the determination of Chechen extremists to take their war against the Kremlin to Russian soil when he broadcast a statement from the republic last year on Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network.

“If operations in Chechnya continue they will harm Chechen people, so we have decided to export operations inside Russia,” declared Walid, a bearded man with long black hair who wore a uniform and spoke against the backdrop of a Chechen flag.

“We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people. God willing they will pay for their fight with their blood and their sons.”

The statement raised fears of a series of bombings aimed at disrupting next month’s presidential election, which is expected to return Vladimir Putin to power by a landslide.

Aslan Maskhadov, the fugitive Chechen leader, yesterday denied responsibility for Friday’s attack, the worst of its kind in Moscow. But he does not speak for more radical rebel commanders such as Walid and Shamil Basayev, the militant Chechen with whom the Saudi is said to have plotted the theatre siege.

Despite the ferocity of the blast, there was an unexpected air of normality yesterday at the Avtozavodskaya metro station, which is lined with white marble and Stalinist mosaics glorifying Soviet workers. Trains were running to schedule and there was no obvious police presence. A bucket filled with red roses and carnations at the entrance to the station and a lingering smell of burnt bodies were the only reminders of the carnage of 24 hours earlier.

Many of the passengers were in sombre mood, however, as they contemplated the fate of those who died when the bomb — packed with pieces of metal — was detonated in a tunnel 300 yards north of the station shortly after 8.30am.

“I’ll never feel safe on the metro again,” said Irina Ignatieva, 28. “This is what we have always dreaded. The police will never be able to prevent further attacks. But I have no choice — I can’t afford to travel by car.”

Police were questioning survivors and studying footage from a surveillance camera of two women suspected of being suicide bombers and a man believed to have been their accomplice, standing on the platform with two suitcases. Shortly before the explosion the man had apparently approached a member of staff and said: “You’ll have a party on your hands.”

The bomb exploded in the train’s second carriage moments after it had pulled away from the station. The carriage was ripped open by a blast so powerful that metal shrapnel pierced the walls of the tunnel, which filled with black smoke.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said the driver had saved the lives of many of the 800 passengers by keeping the train doors closed to prevent them jumping out onto the live rail. He sounded the alarm and had the current turned off before opening the doors.

“People were screaming while others tried to smash the windows to escape,” said Anton Mikhailov, 32, an accountant who was in the third carriage. “There was thick smoke. People were panicking for fear of suffocating. The place was strewn with pieces of human flesh. It was a hellish scene.”

The passengers — some shaking uncontrollably, others covered in blood, grime and dust — struggled to make their way out of the tunnel in pitch darkness by feeling their way along the tunnel walls. Sparks flew over their heads from damaged wiring. Some drenched handkerchiefs in their own urine and held them to their faces to block out the fumes.

Denis Malchanov, who was travelling in the front carriage of the train, said: “The scene was a heap of torn bodies among twisted bits of metal. People were sent flying through the windows by the force of the explosion.”

Despite some criticism of the security services for failing to prevent the blast, the attack appears unlikely to dent the popularity of Putin, who emphasised that it would not weaken his tough stance on Chechnya.

Walid and those around him appear equally determined. Hardly known until recently, he is now seen by the FSB as an increasingly influential figure. Last year the Russians offered a reward of $100,000 for information leading to his capture — a huge sum in a region where the average monthly salary is $30.

Walid is an explosives expert who trained in Afghanistan under the Taliban. He is thought to have moved to Chechnya in 1997. According to the FSB, he ran a terrorist training camp there under the command of Khattab, another radical Wahhabi known as the “black Arab” who was killed by the Russians in May 2002. Walid has since become the highest-ranking Arab militant in the war-torn region.

The FSB accuses Walid of channelling financial support for the Chechens from Islamic militant groups in several Arab countries. It also claims that he has links with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, but has provided no proof.

Walid was recently quoted in an Arab newspaper as saying that he supported Iraqi insurgents who carry out daily attacks on American forces.

“The Chechens are becoming more radical and are falling under the influence of extremist Wahhabi Arabs,” said one Russian intelligence officer.

“Walid is the key figure in this ‘Arabisation’ of the Chechens. He trains suicide bombers, plans the attacks and helps to choose the targets. He is fast becoming more powerful than the Chechen commanders that he came to help.

“Few men are as dangerous and ruthless as him. He is at the top of our hit list.”

Is this the real Chechnya?

Time Europe magazine

Chechnya...no way out

Posted Sunday, September 28, 2003; 12.48BST Andrei Petrov (not this soldier's real name) knew he'd never have a better chance than this. It was a scorching August day in 1999 and Petrov — commander of a Russian special-ops team in Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya — had Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev in his sights. Earlier that month, Basayev had led an invasion of Dagestan and called upon local separatists to help in the fight against Russia. With a simple squeeze of his finger, Petrov could take out Basayev, the Chechens' most effective guerrilla general and the man responsible for some of the conflict's worst terrorist attacks. But Petrov says he received the following order over his walkie-talkie: "Hold your fire."

"We just watched Basayev's long column of trucks and jeeps withdraw from Dagestan back to Chechnya under cover provided by our own attack helicopters," Petrov recalls. "We could have wiped him out then and there, but the bosses in Moscow wanted him alive. They want the war to go on indefinitely [because of] the money: millions made in oil, millions made in the arms trade, millions siphoned off from funds earmarked for reconstruction. That's why the war can never end."

Though a senior Russian Federal official dismisses Petrov's story as "improbable," other Chechnya vets have told similar tales, and in his book Forgotten Chechnya the late State Duma Deputy Yuri Shchekochikhin stated that the Basayev column was escorted out of Dagestan by Russian choppers. President Vladimir Putin, who came to power in 1999 vowing to quell the Chechen insurgency, says that the battle there is part of the global war against terrorism. But for many Moscow officials and Russian soldiers on the front lines, it has become a form of government-sanctioned organized crime.

"Extortion and looting in Chechnya are just the tip of the iceberg," says Alexei Mitrophanov, a Deputy in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. "We're talking big money, money that's shared all the way from the top down to mere troopers." Last May, General Victor Kazantsev, Putin's envoy to the Southern Federal District that includes Chechnya, said that $6 million earmarked for Chechnya had been siphoned off by officials in Moscow. According to Usman Masayev, deputy head of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, only 20% of $148 million earmarked to reconstruct Chechnya last year made it to the republic.

The Chechen war is a deadly business, but according to confidential government reports, the Russian military estimates that 75% of Russian casualties are due to friendly fire. "Russian losses, allegedly caused by friendly fire, often result from showdowns between rival army and police forces," says Mitrophanov. They clash over the right to fleece the Chechens coming through lucrative checkpoints, or over "protection" rights for tank trucks smuggling oil across the Chechen border. Or, says Petrov, they just clash when too much vodka releases the traditional enmity between soldiers and cops. "Russian soldiers guard oil rigs that are run by the very Chechen warlords they're supposed to be fighting," Mitrophanov says. The payoff — up to $10,000 for a common riot police trooper serving a three-month-long stint — is too big to ignore for starving and ill-equipped conscripts who normally make $100 to $160 a month in Chechnya.

Other rackets popular with both the Russians and the pro-Moscow Chechen police force are kidnapping and looting. "The cops have a pattern," says Petrov. "They surround a village, and some mop it up while others loot houses, schools and mosques." The Russians also do a brisk trade as arms merchants, selling their own weapons to the Chechens. "The Chechens have state-of-the art, Russian-made weapons, including sharp shooters' rifles and automatic rifles that we don't have," Petrov says. "They even have choppers, now hidden in the mountains. Guess who sells them all that matériel."

The commanders who didn't let Petrov take out Basayev seem determined to prove him right when he agrees that a line spoken by the witches in Macbeth applies to Chechnya: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair." With unlimited supplies of guns, money and hatred — but no rules — it could hardly be any other way.

"Walid, a follower of the Wahhabi sect that dominates worship in Saudi Arabia, signalled the determination of Chechen extremists to take their war against the Kremlin to Russian soil when he broadcast a statement from the republic last year on Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network."LINK (TERROR PROPAGANDA WARNING!)

Chechnya: Amir Abu al-Walid and the Islamic component of the Chechen war
Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst - 26 Feb 2003
11 Mar 2003, 00:01

Following the death of Amir Ibn al-Khattab last spring, there was speculation as to whether the foreign Islamist mujahidin would continue to play a large role in the Chechen struggle for independence from Russia. Khattab appears to have been replaced by a 35 year old Saudi, Abu al-Walid. Unlike the often flamboyant Khattab, al-Walid' has a more reclusive style. Ample speculation surrounds him, incuding whether he exists at all. Al-Walid is an experienced and worthy successor to Khattab in the field. What remains to be seen is whether al-Walid can preserve the supply networks of volunteers and money under enormous international pressure is being applied to terminate these conduits.

BACKGROUND: A native of southern Saudi Arabia, al-Walid's real name is 'Abd al-Aziz al-Ghamidi. In 1987, al-Walid left for Peshawar, the transit point for Arab volunteers heading into Afghanistan. There, he would have received training and support from the Mukhtab al-Khidmat, an organization run by Dr. 'Abdullah 'Azzam and funded by Osama bin Laden. As the Afghan war wound down, al-Walid made a short trip home before volunteering for new jihad operations in Bosnia in 1993.

In June of 2002, the London-based Saudi newspaper al-Majallah published an interview with al-Walid's family in Saudi Arabia. His family revealed that he was pious but religiously moderate, one of eleven sons, and once had a taste for acting, but had little to say about his days in Afghanistan.

In Bosnia, al-Walid may have served alongside some 300 veterans of the Afghanistan war. While they proved effective fighters, they were joined by hundreds of other foreign Muslims whose military skills were questionable, and whose religious Puritanism antagonized tolerant Bosnian Muslims. Many of the 'Afghans' were organized as part of the regular Bosnian Army's 7th Battalion under the command of Abu 'Abd al-Aziz 'Barbaros', an Indian Muslim with experience in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

When the Dayton Accords made the mujahidin presence in Bosnia politically uncomfortable, several hundred of the 'Afghans' began transferring to Chechnya in late 1995.

Al-Walid may have served with Khattab in Chechnya as early as March 1995, planning and participating in some of the war's most successful actions against Russian convoys. In the role of Khattab's naib (deputy), he joined the 1999 attack on Dagestan that contributed to sparking the current war. In April 2000 he led a successful attack on the Russian 51st Paratroop regiment. In May 2002 came reports that al-Walid was holding the captured crew of an Mi-24 helicopter hostage, threatening to kill them if the Russians did not release 20 jailed Chechens.

There are allegations that al-Walid is variously an agent of Saudi intelligence, the Muslim Brotherhood, or Bin-Laden's al-Qaeda. The FSB claims that al-Walid organized the 1999 Russian apartment-block bombings, planned bacteriological attacks on Russia, and was behind the May 2002 Kaspiysk bombing in Daghestan.

IMPLICATIONS: In September 2002, questions were raised as to al-Walid's actual existence. The Director of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya claimed that Akhmed Zakayev and other representatives of the Maskhadov government had told him there was no such person as Abu al-Walid. Russian journalist Anna Politkoyskaya (one of the few outsiders to report from behind Chechen lines) was quoted as saying none of the fighters she knew had ever seen al-Walid. Further complicating the picture were numerous reports that al-Walid had drowned in June 2002 while crossing the Khul-Kulao River by horse.

The first known pictures of al-Walid appeared on Movladi Udagov's Kavkaz (Caucasus) website. The site showed a youthful looking al-Walid posing with Basayev, Maskhadov and other leaders of the Chechen rebellion. Al-Walid affects the long hair and beard popular with the late al-Khattab and other Arab mujahidin in Chechnya.

Russia blames Abu al-Walid and Shamil Basayev for the devastating December 27 truck-bombing of the Chechen administration building in Grozny, allegedly carried out with funding from the Muslim Brotherhood. Russian officials claimed that the 'Arab methods' used in the suicide-bombing pointed to 'Arab militants trained in Afghanistan'. The Muslim Brotherhood has vigorously denied any responsibility for the Grozny bombing or other violent acts, though they are likely involved in fund-raising for the Chechen mujhadin as well as their acknowledged funding of humanitarian organizations active in Chechnya.

Al-Walid appears to be serving as deputy to Basayev, the Amir of the Majlis al-Shura. Basayev has resigned his command, however, since admitting responsibility for the disastrous events in Moscow. Officially, Basayev is now nothing more than the commander of the Riyadus- Salakhin Suicide Battallion, a newly formed unit of radical Islamists. Al-Walid continues as Commander of Eastern Front operations. The mujahidin under al-Walid are multi-ethnic in origin.

Besides Arabs from the Gulf region and North Africa, there have at times been volunteers from Turkey, other parts of the Russian North Caucasus, Central Asia, Western Europe and even Japan. The composition of the group is fluid but is hard pressed at present to insert new members. A group of about 80 Arabs may have entered Chechnya last Fall. There are also claims that many Saudi-sponsored Arabs active in Chechnya have recently relocated to the Middle East due to the failure of the Salafists to gain popular support in the Caucasus.

Khattab understood the importance of public relations, realizing that in order to keep funds coming, the Chechen jihad had to be visible. A videotape team always accompanied Khattab's operations, and the Amir frequently made himself available for interviews (by satellite phone or other means) to the Muslim media. Al-Walid's more secretive style may jeopardize the mujahidin's financial links.

CONCLUSIONS: Russian allegations of al-Qaeda control of al-Walid and the Arab fighters (and lately, the entire Chechen rebellion) make for useful propaganda, intended to draw American support. These charges rest on the belief that Bin Laden controls the thoughts and actions of every militant in the Islamic world. Since his death, Khattab's military career has been compared favorably to Bin Laden's by some of the most radical shaykhs in Saudi Arabia. While Khattab was a constant presence on the battlefield and never pretended to be a scholar of Islam, Bin Laden has pretensions of religious leadership and has brought destruction upon Muslim lands. Khattab strongly denied any al-Qaeda connections to his command.

The importance of the Arab fighters in the Chechen war may actually be diminishing at the same time as Russian authorities are trying to emphasize it. While their numbers are too small to affect the fight one way or another, they remain important in command roles and as conduits to those in the Islamic world willing to support the struggle. Unlike the Russians, the Chechens have a very limited pool of manpower to draw upon, making it nearly impossible to refuse the help of any trained volunteer. Veterans of Afghanistan were initially important in training Chechen rebels, but such training is no longer needed, as Chechens have mastered their own tactics and weaponry. Shrinking financial support from the Gulf States may further reduce the influence of the Arab mujahidin in Chechnya.

Andrew McGregor

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