Taziev is an ethnic Ingush who was raised in Grozny, Chechnya. He participated in the First Chechen War. After the conclusion of the First Chechen War he returned to Ingushetia and entered the police. There he was promoted to the Ingush Interior Ministry Police forces, where he attained the rank of captain. At the start of the Second Chechen War, he returned to Chechnya and became a sub-commander under Shamil Basayev before Basayev assigned him to use his family and clan ties to begin raising armed groups in Ingushetia. In this position, he was among the commanders of the 2004 Nazran raid in which simultaneous nationwide raids on police stations killed over 70 security personnel in the capital Nazran; according to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), during the attack Taziev personally killed the acting Ingush Interior Minister Abubakar Kostoyev.