Dokka Umarov conflict Insurgency in the North Caucasus
Doku Khamatovich Umarov (Chechen: Ӏумар Хьамади кӀант Докка, romanized: 'Umar Ẋamadi khant Dokka, [ʕuˈmɑr ħɑmɑdi ˈkʼɑnt doˈkːɑ]; Russian: Доку Хаматович Умаров, Doku Khamatovich Umarov; 13 April 1964 – 7 September 2013), also known as Dokka Umarov as well as by his Arabized name of Dokka Abu Umar, was a Chechen mujahid in North Caucasus. Umarov was a major military figure in both wars in Chechnya during the 1990s and 2000s, before becoming the leader of the greater insurgency in the North Caucasus. He was active mostly in south-western Chechnya, near and across the borders with Ingushetia and Georgia.
During the late 1990s, after Chechnya's first war against Russia, Movladi Udugov's status as war hero enabled him to take the post of the breakaway Republic's Security Minister. Between 2006 and 2007, following the death of his predecessor Sheikh Abdul Halim, Umarov became the underground President of Ichkeria of the unrecognized government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the post that Umarov eventually abolished himself when he renounced and abandoned Chechen nationalism in favour of regional pan-Islamism and jihadist ideology. The political mantle of Chechen nationalist separatism was formally taken over by the self-exiled Akhmed Zakayev, Umarov's former wartime comrade and friend turned political rival. Having quit the position of Chechen separatist leader, Umarov subsequently became the self-proclaimed Emir of the entire North Caucasus region of Russia, declaring it a putative Islamic state of the Caucasus Emirate. In 2010, Umarov abortively resigned from the position and appointed Aslambek Vadalov as the new Emir of the Caucasus Emirate, but soon afterwards issued a statement annulling the previous declaration and stating he would remain in his position and rebel Sharia court ruled in favour of Umarov over the rift, following which most other Russian rebel leaders re-swore allegiance to him.
For years, Umarov had been the top terrorist leader in Russia. He had taken responsibility for several attacks on civilian targets since 2009, including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing. In 2012, Umarov ordered his followers to halt attacks on the civilian population of Russia, while leaving military and security personnel as legitimate targets. In July 2013, however, he announced the end of this moratorium and calling on Islamic insurgents in the Caucasus and beyond to forcibly prevent the holding of the Sochi 2014 Olympics. Umarov was internationally wanted by the government of Russia and United States. In 2011, the United Nations Security Council's Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee added Umarov to the list of individuals allegedly associated with al-Qaeda and Taliban.On 18 March 2014, Umarov's death was reported by the Caucasus Emirate-associated Islamist website Kavkaz Center, which offered no details but did say his death was confirmed by the Command of the Caucasus Emirate. He was announced to be replaced by the Caucasus Emirate's senior Sharia judge Ali Abu Mukhammad, who then officially confirmed the death of Umarov in a video posted on YouTube. According to a report posted on Kavkaz Center, Umarov was poisoned on 6 August 2013 and died at dawn on 7 September 2013. On 25 September 2017, Russian media reported that the body of Umarov had possibly been found in a remote mountainous area in Ingushetia.Second Chechen War
Umarov began his participation in the Second Chechen War in September 1999, as a field commander, again cooperating closely with Ruslan Gelayev during the Russian siege for Grozny. In early 2000, Umarov sustained a serious wound to his face and jaw as he was leaving the surrounded Grozny, and was hospitalized in a neutral country, probably Georgia (or possibly in southern Russia in a secret cooperation with elements within Russian secret services, as it was alleged by Novaya Gazeta journalist and former Russian military officer Vyacheslav Izmailov), alongside the also injured and evacuated Zakayev. After his convalescence (including undergoing extensive plastic surgery), Umarov raised and led a militia force in Georgia's remote Pankisi Gorge before his return to Chechnya in the summer of 2002.
Back in Chechnya, Umarov became the replacement of Isa Munayev on the post of the commander of Southwestern Front (comprising an estimated 1,000 fighters by 2004), the military region southwest of Grozny that bordered on Georgia and Ingushetia. He was regarded as an ally of Shamil Basayev, then based in the south-eastern Vedensky District. In 2003, Umarov led his men in the heavy fighting around the town of Shatoy and, according to the Russian sources, ordered the bombing of Ingushetia's FSB headquarters in the Ingush capital of Magas and the attack on electrical infrastructure facilities in the city of Kislovodsk in Stavropol Krai. After the death of Gelayev in February 2004, many of his remaining men joined Umarov's group. The next summer, together with Basayev, Umarov was one of the leaders of a large-scale raid by Chechen and Ingush fighters that killed scores of Ingushetia's officials and members of the security forces and briefly seized control over the republic's largest town, Nazran.Through 2005, there were numerous inaccurate reports of Umarov's death or grave injury. In January, he was reported to have been killed in a gun battle with Russian special forces near the Georgian border. In March, he was reported to have been seriously wounded by a Spetznaz assassination team. In September, the MVD announced it had found "Umarov's grave", and the following month, in October, he was once again falsely reported dead in the rebel raid on Nalchik, the capital city of Kabardino-Balkaria. In April 2005, Russian special forces destroyed a small guerrilla unit during a battle in a residential area of Grozny after receiving intelligence that Umarov was with them, yet he was not found among the dead. In May 2005, Umarov was reportedly seriously hurt when he stepped on an anti-personnel mine. He was said to have lost a leg in the blast, but turned out to be only lightly injured and participated in an attack on the village of Roshni-Chu three months later. In May 2006, Chechen police discovered his headquarters bunker in the center of the village of Assinovskaya on the border with Ingushetia, but Umarov managed to escape. On 2 June 2005 he was appointed as the vice president of the separatist government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI).Chechen presidency
As Vice President of Ichkeria, Umarov was automatically elevated to the position as supreme leader of the ChRI following the death of President of Ichkeria Sheikh Abdul-Halim Sadulayev on 17 June 2006. Having become president, Umarov held such posts as the head of the State Defense Council; Amir (commander) of the Madzhlis Shura of the Caucasus; Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria; and finally, Amir of the Mujahideen of the Caucasus. In his first published comments since assuming the role of president, Umarov vowed to expand the conflict to "many regions of Russia", praised his predecessor Sadulayev, indicated that a special unit was being formed to fight Chechnya's "most odious traitors" (a remark believed to refer to pro-Moscow Chechen leaders) and stressed that Chechen fighters and their allies would attack only military and police targets within Russia, including in the newly declared Urals and Volga Region Fronts.On 27 June 2006, Umarov appointed the maverick Chechen commander Shamil Basayev to the position of vice-president of the separatist government, simultaneously releasing him from his position as first deputy prime minister. Umarov's foreign minister, Usman Firzauli, said that the appointment was meant to force Russia into political negotiations, for if they killed Umarov, then the radical Basayev would have become the official leader of the Chechen separatist movement. However, Basayev was killed soon afterward, in July 2006. In October 2007, Umarov posthumously restored the disgraced field commander Arbi Barayev to the rank of brigadier general, which had been stripped by Maskhadov in 1998; this was a considered especially strange move given Barayev's infamy and reputed close links with the FSB.On 18 August 2006, Umarov was falsely announced to have surrendered at the Gudermes residence of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Russian-backed leader of Chechnya, under a Russian amnesty provision enacted after Basayev's death. However, Russian authorities later reversed it to a claim of surrender of Umarov's "younger brother and former head of bodyguards". Umarov maintained he has no younger brother and the later reports identified the alleged surrenderee as Doku's older brother, Akhmad, instead. Chechen separatists said that the older Umarov had disappeared two years before when he supposedly gave up and called it "a PR stunt". Umarov previously called the amnesty as "a hopeless attempt by the Kremlin regime to shroud the real situation in lies."On 23 November 2006, large numbers of Defense Ministry and FSB troops, without the participation of Chechen police, supported by helicopters and artillery barrages, were reported to have surrounded Umarov and his forces in a forest near the village of Yandi-Katar in the Achkhoy-Martanovsky District, on the internal border between Ingushetia and Chechnya. According to Kommersant, Umarov was wounded in the operation but managed to escape the pursuit. He spent the winter months traveling across the mountains to the nearby republic of Kabardino-Balkaria to meet with local jamaats fighting Russian authorities in the region and consolidate the Caucasian Front, the pan-Caucasian Islamic militant network set up by Sadulayev. In April 2007, a group of fighters that might have been personally led by Umarov shot down a special forces helicopter with the Spetsnaz GRU troops near Shatoy, killing at least 18 Russian soldiers.
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