Sheikh Abdul Halim

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**Sheikh Abdul Halim**

Order:	4th President (separatist)
Took Office:	2004
Predecessor:	Aslan Maskhadov
Successor:	Doku Umarov
Date of Birth:	1966
Place of Birth:	Argun, Chechnya
Date of Death:	17 June 2006
Place of Death:	Argun, Chechnya

Abdul-Halim Salamovich Sadulayev (Шейх Абдул-Халим) (1966 – 17 June 2006) was the fourth Chechen rebel president to be killed in 12 years of separatist warfare in the southern Russian region. In their wars against Russia the Chechens have traditionally elected leaders who held some kind of formal religious position, including Sheikh Mansur and Imam Shamil.

Sadulayev was the first Chechen leader to spread the conflict outside Chechnya, as he had won pledges of loyalty not only from Chechen separatists, but also from Islamic fundamentalist groups seeking the overthrow of the Kremlin's authority across southern Russia. Sadulayev, however, is credited with persuading warlord Shamil Basayev not to carry out any major terrorist attacks since Beslan. He had a substantial following among young Muslims disenchanted with corruption and violence among Ramzan Kadyrov and his entourage, and his death was a powerful psychological blow to both the fighters and the political leadership of the resistance.

1 Name
2 Biography
3 Death
4 External links

[edit] Name

There is considerable variation in writing his name in both English and Russian sources. His surname is variously written Sadulaev, Sadulayev, Saidulaev, Saidulayev, Saidullaev, Saidullayev or Saydullayev; the first two of these seem to be favored by insurgent sources, while the others are favored by Russian sources and Western media. His first name is also written Abdul-Khalim, and is sometimes written with or without a hyphen. In Russian his name with surname is written Абдул-Халим Сайдуллаев or Абдул-Халим Сайдулаев or Абдул-Халим Садулаев, with or without the hyphen.

His full name given by the separatist website Kavkaz Center appears to be Abdul-Halim Abu-Salamovich Sadulayev (Абдул-Халим Абу-Саламович Садулаев).

[edit] Biography

Sadulayev was born into the Ustradoi teip, an influential clan in the town of Argun on the plains of central Chechnya to the east of Grozny. After growing up in Argun, he entered Chechnya's university to study philology, but had to break off his studies as the First Chechen War with Russian Federation broke out in 1994 in which he fought against the Russians in local Argun militia.

[edit] Religious career

Sadulayev also studied Islam under local Islamic theologians and from 1996 began what would become regular appearances on Chechen television speaking about Islam. He lectured across Chechnya and led Argun's Muslim community, for a while as the town's Imam. Sadulayev made the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the only time he is known to have left his homeland.

Sadulayev become the leader of the only jamaat in the city of Argun, which, in contrast with others, carried out non-Wahhabi related missionary activities. Apart from their religious functions, most of the jamaats in Chechnya also represent military detachments. During the standoff between the radicals and authorities in 1998, he did not support Abdurrakhman, the leader of all Chechen jamaats. After these events, Abdurrakhman was stripped of his Chechen citizenship and declared persona non grata in Chechnya; he died in 2001 while fighting in one of the jamaats as a regular soldier.

In 1999, Aslan Maskhadov appointed Sadulayev to a commission for constitutional Sharia reform, a commission then headed by Akhmad Kadyrov, who would later reject the rebels and embrace Moscow. Maskhadov offered Sadulaev the head of the Supreme Sharia Court of Chechnya, but Sadulaev turned down the offer, explaining that he did not have sufficient clerical knowledge to judge other people.

[edit] Guerilla leader

When the Second Chechen War started Sadulayev again returned to fighting, commanding the popular militia from Argun. Since 1999, Sadulaev has been one of Maskhadov's most loyal field commanders. In 2002, he was designated by Maskhadov to be his successor as president of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Shortly following Maskhadov's death on 8 March 2005, the Chechen rebel council announced that Sadulayev had assumed Maskhadov's position, a move that was quickly endorsed by Basayev, the Chechens' highest-profile guerilla commander.

[edit] Presidency

After assuming power, Sadulayev ruled out any prospects of unconditional negotiations with Russia, an idea that Maskhadov had raised. Instead, he pushed for an extension of rebel activities into the greater North Caucasus region, seeking to establish an Islamic caliphate throughout Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Stavropol, Karachay-Cherkessia, Adygea, and Krasnodar Krai. He had called for expanding the Chechnya conflict into a "decolonization" of Muslim-dominated adjoining regions and adoption of a constitution based on Islamic law, or Sharia. He also condemned hostage taking, popular local way of raising money.

Sadulayev had not only an ideological commitment to maintaining the conflict, but perhaps a personal one as well: Chechen insurgent sources claim that his wife was kidnapped in 2003 by Russian spetsnaz forces and killed by the FSB when attempts to buy her back failed. He had worked to eliminate terrorist violence, publicly denounced the targeting of civilians and urged Basayev and other warlords to direct attacks on "legitimate targets," including law enforcement officials, federal troops and local civil servants and their offices. He appears to have convinced Basayev, who was enlisted in the formation of the Caucasian Front, that giving up on civilian targets would help spread the insurgency across the North Caucasus.

[edit] Death

On 17 June 2006 Sadulayev was killed in a gun battle with the FSB and pro-Moscow militiamen in Argun. According to the FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, two members of the federal forces were killed and five were wounded in a firefight in which Sadulayev and his bodyguard were killed, and two others rebels escaped. In August 2006 rebel commander Isa Muskiev said the federals and the kadyrovtsy lost five men killed in the shootout, one of them shot by Sadulayev personally, and three fighters escaped. [1]

The body was later moved to Ramzan Kadyrov's hometown of Tsentoroi. Kadyrov said an informant had tipped off police for drug money; he claimed that rebel forces there had "been dealt a decisive blow from which they will never recover." Kadyrov said that his paramilitary police had wanted to capture Sadulayev but were forced to kill him when he resisted arrest, and also stated Sadulayev was in Argun organizing a "terrorist attack" to coincide with the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg next month. The killing of Sheikh Abdul Halim was trumpeted by leaders of the Moscow-backed official government of the province, claiming that the separatist forces there had "been dealt a decisive blow from which they will never recover."

The next day, on June 18, Sadulayev was succeeded as head of the Chechen resistance by the rebel vice-president and an active guerrilla commander Doku Umarov.

On June 20, 2006, the Russian human rights organization Memorial posted the findings of its investigation on the Kavkazky Uzel website. According to Memorial, Sadulayev's death was accidental; security officials did not know that he was in the house. Memorial reports that on June 17, about 10:00 am, a group of 12 FSB officers and local policemen approached a possible rebel safe house. They immediately came under gunfire as they entered the yard. Two of the servicemen were killed, and the group retreated after throwing a hand grenade into a window of the house. The grenade blast killed Sheikh Abdul Halim. [2]