Post-Mortem Analysis: A Brief Profile of North Caucasian Militant Commander Biaslan Gochiyaev

Post-Mortem Analysis: A Brief Profile of North Caucasian Militant Commander Biaslan Gochiyaev

An ethnic Karachay, Biaslan Gochiyaev was born in the city of Cherkessk, Karachay-Cherkessia in 1984. Some sources allege that he was a relative of Achemez Gochiyaev. [1] The latter was put on the international wanted list for bombing apartment blocks in Moscow in 1999. [2]

Karachay-Cherkessia’s branch of the Russian investigative committee launched a criminal investigation into Biaslan Gochiyaev’s activities, according to articles 208 and 222 of the Russian criminal code. Article 208 criminalizes the organizing of an illegal armed force or participation therein and specifies imprisonment from two to seven years or limiting of freedom for up to two years. Article 222 penalizes illegal dealings in arms and ammunition and results in up to four years of imprisonment, arrest for up to six months, or limited freedom for up to three years. When his criminal investigation was launched in November 2011, Gochiyaev was put on the federal wanted list as an especially dangerous criminal. [3]

Between 2005 and 2007, Russian security services with the active assistance from Georgian authorities initiated a series of strikes against Karachay-Cherkessia’s jamaat. The series of operations succeeded in capturing nearly all of its mid-level commanders. Furthermore, the security services managed to eliminate the jamaat’s leadership as it crossed the Georgian-Russian border. Consequently, the Russian government stated that the Karachay-Cherkessia jamaat was completely wiped out. In fact, however, Moscow’s anti-militant operations only disrupted the jamaat’s activities and forced it deep underground. The jamaat’s continued sporadic attacks on security services revealed that it was still operating. Yet, the jamaat’s strength was undermined enough from 2005-2007 that it has officially been incorporated into Kabardino-Balkaria’s jamaat, Takbir. Amir Ubaidallah (aka Alim Zakishiev) is the leader of this jamaat, which unites Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. [4] When the new Amir of Takbir jamaat announced fresh leadership appointments, however, neither Biaslan Gochiyaev nor any ethnic Karachay was mentioned. This means that Karachay-Cherkessia’s jamaat functions separately within the united structure of Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachay velayat, as it is called in the Caucasus Emirate.

The latest news and video recordings on the internet about the Karachay-Cherkessian jamaat’s special forces attest to the rising power of this organization. [5] Moscow’s envoy in the North Caucasus, Alexander Khloponin, and the Russian Minister of the Interior Rashid Nurgaliev both were forced to admit that the situation in Karachay-Cherkessia was alarming. In late 2011, they designated this republic as the Russian Federation’s second priority after Dagestan – something that had not happened since 2007. [6]

It is worth remembering that the Karachay jamaat is the oldest of all the jamaats which exist today in the North Caucasus. It was created at the beginning of the 1990s. Its activities and capabilities to influence the situation – not only in the republic but also beyond it – made this jamaat one of the most advanced such groups in Russia. This naturally worries the authorities. They fear that as the Karachay jamaat awakens, explosions in Moscow and Stavropol region might become a reality again.

On December 7, 2011, near the village of Kumysh, Karachay district, Karachay-Cherkessia, shots were fired at policemen who were trying to stop a car for a document inspection. As a result of the shooting, an unidentified explosive device detonated in the car and all of the car’s passengers received terminal injuries. 27-year-old Biaslan Gochiyaev was identified among the dead as the Amir of “Karachay Jamaat.” [7]

The National Antiterrorist Committee reported shortly before this incident that three rebel suspects from Biaslan Gochiyaev’s group were arrested, and that may have led the police to check documents on the highway where the Karachay jamaat’s leader traveled. [8] Normally, government authorities present even an accidental killing of a rebel following a routine traffic stop as a carefully planned special operation to neutralize insurgents (ITAR-TASS, National Antiterrorist Committee’s statement, December 8, 2011). However, neither the FSB nor the MVD were able initially to say who was in the exploded car, so it did not appear to be a well thought through special operation by the Russian security services. Rather, the news of Biaslan’s Gochiyaev’s death during the December 7 incident may have been deliberately leaked by Russian security services to point to their success in eliminating the reported relative of the alleged architect of the 1999 Moscow apartment bombing which sparked Russia’s second war in Chechnya.

Notes

1. A relative of the terrorist exploded himself in Moscow, Kommersant.ru, September 12, 2011, www.kommersant.ru/pda/kommersant.html?id=1834132.

2. Karachai, wanted on charges of apartment bombings. in Moscow in 1999, Lenta.ru, September 09, 2006 https://lenta.ru/lib/14159334/full.htm.

3. A relative of the terrorist exploded himself in Moscow, Kommersant.ru, September 12, 2011, www.kommersant.ru/pda/kommersant.html?id=1834132.

4. Emir Dokka Abu Usman appointed Amir of KBK Province called Alim Zankisheva, Djamaat Takbir Blog, September 13, 2011 https://www.djamaattakbir.com/2011/09/blog-post_6867.html.

5. YouTube Clip, December 25, 2009 www.youtube.com/watch?gl=FR&v=_vlm-m5qLUc.

6. Khloponin: The height of terror in the North Caucasus has passed, Kavkaz.ge, December 1, 2011, https://kavkaz.ge/2011/12/01/aleksandr-xloponin-pik-terrora-na-severnom-kavkaze-projden/.

7. Biaslan Gochiyaev, the assassinated leader of the local militants, Gazeta.ru, December 8, 2011, www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2011/12/08/n_2127266.shtml.

8. Destroyed in Karachaevo-Cherkessia militants were preparing a series of terrorist acts, 1tv.ru, December 8, 2011, https://www.1tv.ru/news/crime/193201.