Alleged Mastermind of Istanbul Airport Bombing: Who is Akhmed Chataev?

Alleged Mastermind of Istanbul Airport Bombing: Who is Akhmed Chataev?

A Note from Jamestown: As Turkish law enforcement officials work to determine who is responsible for this week’s Istanbul airport attack, international news media has focused their attention on one man, Akhmed Chataev. While Turkish media was first to finger Chataev as the one responsible for this attack, others are now publicly pointing to Chataev. Among those who have identified Chataev as the possible mastermind behind the Ataturk Airport attack is U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security (New York Times, July 1). Information on who is behind this attack is still being gathered and analyzed. Meanwhile, we would like to provide our subscribers with what we know about Akhmed Chataev. The following article contains some key biographical material about Chataev by Mairbek Vatchagaev, one of our top analysts on Chechnya and the North Caucasus.

BIOGRAPHY

Akhmed Chataev, 36, comes from the village of Vedeno in Chechnya. After the start of the second Russian-Chechen war in 1999, Chataev fought in the group of Akhmed Zakaev. In December 1999, Chataev received serious injuries. The militant was injured again in 2001; that injury caused him to lose part of his right arm. In the period from 2000 to 2002, Chataev lived as a refugee in Baku, Azerbaijan. Following his time in Baku, Akhmed Chataev went to Russia in 2003. There he obtained travel documents and illegally crossed into Austria, where he received political asylum the same year. Chataev is married and has three children.

In 2005, the leader of Chechen militants, Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev, appointed Chataev as the first deputy to the General Representative of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in Austria. In his new capacity, Chataev was responsible for collecting funds for Chechen separatists linked to the rebel government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Sadulaev was killed in 2006 and was replaced by Doku Umarov, as his successor.

Around 2007, Akhmed Chataev functioned as Doku Umarov’s man in Europe, collecting money for the Caucasus Emirate. Umarov, now deceased, was the leader of the Islamist armed underground movement in the North Caucasus.

In 2008, Swedish authorities detained Akhmed Chataev and several other Chechens in the locality of Trelleborg. The authorities charged the group with illegal arms trafficking. On January 5, 2009, a Swedish court sentenced Akhmed Chataev to 1.5 years in prison. He was immediately released upon sentencing, because he had served a commensurate amount of time in detention (inosmi.ru/ukraine, January 13, 2010).

On January 3, 2010, Ukrainian authorities detained Akhmed Chataev (ua-reporter.com, January 13, 2010). Russia demanded Chataev’s extradition. Under pressure from activists who went to the European Court of Human Rights, however, Ukrainian authorities ultimately extradited the suspect to Georgia. Georgian authorities had sought Chataev’s arrest because they suspected him of committing crimes in Georgia in the beginning of 2000s (webcache.googleusercontent.com, March 3, 2010). Some analysts think that Chataev’s visit to Ukraine was connected to one of the most famous Ukrainian oligarchs, but no supporting information is available at this moment.

In May 2011, Interpol arrested Akhmed Chataev, nicknamed “One-armed,” on Russia’s request at the checkpoint Kapitan Andreev in Bulgaria. Subsequently, Chataev spent two months in detention in the city of Haskovo. Initially, the court ruled to extradite Chataev to Russia, but the court of appeals in Plovdiv released him and ordered him to return to Austria (kavkaz-uzel.ru, July 21, 2011).

In 2012, Akhmed Chataev went to Turkey where he acted as Doku Umarov’s representative (ick.ge, June 4, 2013).

Chataev’s name emerged in the Georgian authorities’ special operation in the Lapota Gorge in Georgia in August 2012. There Georgian security services clashed with an armed group that was made up of Chechens from Chechnya and the Pankisi Gorge. The armed group intended to cross the border from Georgia to Russia and join the armed underground movement in Chechnya. Fourteen people died in the clash, including three Georgian servicemen. Akhmed Chataev mediated between the government forces of Georgia and the militants. Eventually, Chataev switched to the militants’ side and resisted the Georgian authorities. He was arrested, but then released a short time after (bbc.com, December 7, 2012). The former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili asserted that Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili was involved in Chataev’s expeditious release (dialog.ua, June 30).

After his release in Georgia, Akhmed Chataev briefly returned to Austria in 2013. He left for Syria soon after returning to Austria.

In August 2015, Russian security services publicly announced for the first time that Akhmed Chataev recruited Russian citizens for the Islamic State in the Middle East. According to the report, Chataev led a group of militants that prepared terrorist attacks (kommersant.ru, August 5, 2015).

Sources in the Chechen community in Turkey said that Turkish police detained Akhmed Chataev in 2015. After a brief conversation with the officials, however, Chataev was released.

Akhmed Chataev was put on the UN list of terrorists on October 2, 2015, pursuant to paragraphs 2 and 4 of resolution 2161 (2014) as being associated with Al-Qaeda for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by Al-Qaida (QDe.004) [and the] Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” (un.org, October 2, 2015).

Chataev managed to gather a group of 250-300 militants in Syria, but many of them were killed in the clashes with the Kurds at Kobani. Later, the remnants of his group fought in the area of Baiji, where he lost practically all of his people. Hence, Chataev lost his status as a commanding amir and instead became a person responsible for the volunteers from the Caucasus. In any case, Chataev is unlikely to have the leadership position. The militant might be at a position of secondary importance but certainly not higher, as he thus far has been unsuccessful in his attempts at fulfilling leadership roles.

Mairbek Vatchagaev is a Fellow of the Jamestown Foundation and is a noted Chechen historian and political analyst on the North Caucasus.