SUMMARY
The Wahhabi movement of the Buinaksk district (alternatively the Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan) was a militant Islamist group that emerged in the Russian republic Dagestan, in the wake of glasnost and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and fought an intrastate armed conflict over territory against the Government of Russia (Soviet Union)(see Russia (Soviet Union): Dagestan).
The re-Islamization in Dagestan during the 1990s was seen as an integral part in reclaiming ethnic and socio-cultural identities suppressed by the Soviet system; many Dagestanis were active in the Islamic Revival Party, the first active Islamic political group in the Soviet Union. The emerging Wahhabi/Salafi movement, representing an ultraconservative branch of Islam, was strongly opposed to the Sufi interpretation of Islam, which was common in Dagestan. The Dagestani Wahhabi/Salafi movement was in the 1990s dominated by two prominent figures: the more moderate Akhmad-Kadi Akhtaev, and the more radical Bagaudtin Kebedov. There was considerable tension between Akhtaev’s moderate agenda and the radical Wahhabis like Bagaudtin; Akhtaev died under unclear circumstances in 1998, which led to the end of “intellectual” Salafism in Dagestan. Bagaudtin had established the Islamic Jamaat of Dagestan already in 1989 as a platform to spread his jihadi message; Bagaudtin’s overarching goal was to create a Sharia society, and to replicate the political ascent of Islamists in places like Afghanistan and Sudan. In 1997, he began encouraging the villagers in Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi to denounce secular Russian law, and to create Sharia “mini-states”; the same year, he was forced into exile in Chechnya.
Quarrels, and even minor violent clashes, between the Wahhabis and other Muslims erupted in for example Kadar in 1996 and Chabanmakhi in May 1997. This also led to efforts by the Dagestani authorities to discredit the Wahhabi movement. The Wahhabi movement established control over the villages Kadar, Karamakhi, and Chabanmakhi in July and August 1998, following a standoff with local law enforcement units. These villages where located in central Dagestan, in the Buinaksk district. Following an agreement with the Dagestani authorities to prevent an escalation of the hostilities, these villages were established as a de facto independent djamaat, a traditional local administrative unit.
The spiritual leader of the movement was Bagaudtin Kebedov, a radical follower of the Wahhabi branch of Islam, while the military commander was Ibn Al-Khattab, an Arab warlord who had fought in the Chechen conflict 1994-1996; it is worth noting that Al-Khattab intermittently also served as a commander for various Chechen groups at this time.
There was considerable contact between the Wahhabi movement of the Buinaksk district and various militant Chechen factions. At the time, there were considerable tensions between the various Chechen factions; such as between moderates and religious extremists. In 1997, Bagaudtin established ties to the radical Chechen warlord Salaman Raduyev, who had recently been stripped of his official military rank by the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov. The Wahhabi movement of the Buinaksk district thus aligned itself with the more radical Chechen factions, including other Wahhabis, who were strongly opposed by the moderate President Maskhadov. As a result, the Wahhabi movement of the Buinaksk district participated in an attack against forces loyal to the Chechen President at Gudermes in Chechnya.
In December 1998, fighters from the Wahhabi movement joined the Chechen “International Islamic Battalion”, led by Al-Khattab, in an attack on an army base in Gerlakh, near Buinaksk. As of 1999, Bagaudtin operated training camps together with the Chechen commander Shamil Basaev, and prior to the conflict in 1999 large amounts of weapons and military equipment was also sent from Chechnya to the Wahhabis in Dagestan. In August and September 1999, the two Chechen commanders Basaev and Al-Khattab led a force of some 1500-2000 fighters into Dagestan, in an attempt to create an Islamic state spanning both Chechnya and Dagestan. Particularly the second attack was likely an attempt to assist the village of Karamakhi, which was under Russian attack at the time. Attempts by Chechen militants to assist the Wahhabi movement also contributed to the recurrence of the conflict in Chechnya in 1999 (see Russia (Soviet Union): Chechnya).
It has been suggested that the Wahhabi movement of the Buinaksk district may have been complicit in the series of bombings against Russian apartment buildings on 4-16 September 1999, which left 293 people dead. Dagestani Wahhabis have also been implicated in several other subsequent terrorist attacks. Individuals associated with the movement may also have had connections to the Jennet Jamaat, an Islamist group that merged with the Shariat Jamaat in 2005, which in turn declared allegiance to Dokka Umarov, the leader of the Forces of the Caucasus Emirate, in 2007.
