Militants' attack on Nalchik

An insurgent attack on Nalchik on October 13, 2005, when over 150 militants inspired by Shamil Basayev stormed law enforcement facilities in the capital of the North-Caucasian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. The account below is based on the Agentura.Ru's investigation published in Novaya Gazeta.

When Nalchik, the capital of North-Caucasian republic Kabardino-Balkaria, was attacked by more than 150 militants on October 13, 2005, it had disastrous consequences for the attackers: over 100 insurgents were left lying on the streets. In only a few hours that beautiful, lush resort town, largely built in the Stalin era as a Soviet center of mountain tourism (because of its position near the Caucasus’ highest mountain, the famous Mount Elbrus) became a fierce battlefield as armored vehicles and helicopters were used against the militants. But when the bodies of the dead were examined, it turned out the insurgents were not strangers who came from the Chechen Mountains, but local youths. Until recently their leaders had been legally sanctioned, enjoyed high positions in the local Institute of Islamic Studies and were invited to Moscow as experts on Islam.

It was a critical change in the insurgency movement in the North Caucasus, and from the early 90s Kabardino-Balkaria was thought to be the first place where the Russian secret services faced this new threat.

As in many other republics in the North Caucasus, at the beginning of the 90s opposition in Kabardino-Balkaria was inspired by nationalism. Kabardino-Balkaria consists of two ethnic territories, one dominated by Balkars (who speak a Turkic language) and the other by Kabardians. The Kabardians is another name for the Circassians, tribes who call themselves Adyghes. They live in Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Abkhazia and Adygea, known by different names, and are the largest ethnic group in the region. It was the last part of the Caucasus to be invaded by the Russian empire, and the Russian army only suppressed the Circassian resistance after a brutal war that lasted from 1859—1864. Large numbers of Circassians were exiled and deported to the Ottoman Empire, establishing the significant Circassian Diaspora in modern Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Israel. When the Russian empire fell apart in 1917, the Kabardians and Balkars saw their chance to regain their independence. During the ensuing Civil War, the region became part of the anti-communist South-Eastern League, before joining the Mountain Peoples’ Autonomous Republic in 1921. 

So right from the start, the Soviet authorities were aware of the potential threat posed by Circassians. Joseph Stalin, who in the 20s was in charge of Soviet policy on nationalities, decided to create regions of mixed populations: this explains the double title of so many republics in the North-Caucasus, such as Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia (the latter consists of Cherkessians who are ethnically very close to Kabardians, and Karachays, which is another name of Balkars).

That didn’t help the Soviet authorities in the Second World War, when a significant part of the population of the North Caucasus supported the advancing German troops. This was not forgotten by Stalin and in 1944 the Soviet secret police (the NKVD) accused the Balkars of collaborating with Nazi Germany and deported the entire population. Then it was the Kabardians’ turn, and some Kabardian families were deported to Kazakhstan.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 prompted local nationalists to revive their dreams of independence. The local intelligencia were among the first to support these nationalist aspirations: in 1989 the charismatic Kabardian Yuri Shanibov, professor at the Kabardino-Balkarian University in Nalchik, established the Assembly (later the Confederation) of the peoples of the Caucasus. Later it was to become an influential force in the North Caucasus, filling a power vacuum left by confused Russian authorities. In the early 90s the Confederation, led by Shanibov, had its own military forces and supported all the region’s separatist movements, from Abkhazia to Chechnya. “Georgians were scared of our high papakhas (wool hat, an element of traditional clothing of the most states of the Caucasus), you know, we Circassians wear high papakhi while everyone else wears the usual size”, Shanibov proudly told to the authors in the summer 2006. The Confederation’s armed forces included a Chechen battalion, which fought successfully for Abkhazia against Georgia in 1992. That battalion was commanded by Shamil Basayev. It was his first war. Shanibov said “He was a very able commander”.

In September 1992 Yury Shanibov had been arrested in Nalchik because of what the Confederation had been doing. His arrest sparked riots on the streets of Nalchik. The uprising was eventually suppressed by forces loyal to the President of Kabardino-Balkaria Valery Kokov, who governed the republic since 1992 to fall of 2005. Kokov destroyed the national movements, considering them the main threat to its regime. Shanibov was expelled to Abkhazia. In coming years ahead Kokov consistently suppressed all nationalist organizations including media in the republic. Mostly because of his tough methods, during the two Chechen wars Kabardino-Balkaria was relatively calm. Shanibov quietly returned to Nalchik to continue his career at the University. By 2005 the former nationalists had been squeezed out to the human rights area and it appeared there was no threat to the regime in the republic. But Valery Kokov underestimated a different danger - the Islamist opposition.

In the mid-90s Nalchik became a focal point for the international Circassian Diaspora. Jordan, where Circassians traditionally filled the ranks of the king’s guards, was among the first Arab countries to send Islamic scholars to Nalchik. By this time the North-Caucasian form of Islam had long been compromised both through its cooperation with the Soviet regime and its propensity to incorporate local habits (so-called adat). In turn the Islam brought by teachers from Arab countries, was regarded as uncorrupted and pure. Many local youths who attended their lectures then continued their studies in Arab countries.

In the late 90s these young people were returning home indoctrinated into the school of thought known as Salafism – which claims to be pure teaching stripped of later distortions. In 1998 they established a Kabardino-Balkarian jamaati. The Jamaat’s leaders appeared to be three friends: Musa Mukozhev, Anzor Astemirov and Rasul Kudaev. All three were sent to Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the early 90s to study Arabic. Mukozhev (born in 1966), was older than the two others by nearly a decade, and by 1997 he had established himself as prominent cleric in Nalchik. He was elected the Jamaat’s amir. Rasul Kudaev, who studied Arabic along with Astemirov in Saudi Arabia, was named the Jamaat’s kadi (judge); Astemirov was appointed deputy amir. By the early 2000s the Jamaat had superseded traditional Islam in many areas of the republic.

The former KGB officer Ruslan Nakhushev, a completely secular person, was the first to estimate the political potential of young Muslims. In 2002 he created the Institute of Islamic Studies in Nalchik, hiring the leaders of the Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat. As a result he immediately became the best known opposition politician in the republic. He managed to use even the former leaders of the national movements, who now, as human rights activists, were protecting young Muslims from the oppression by law-enforcement agencies.

However, the Jamaat had its own understanding of what to do next, and in 2005 young Muslims chose armed struggle. A key role in the Jamaat becoming a militant organization was played by Anzor Astemirov, the second most important figure in the jamaat.

Anzor Astemirov was born in 1976 in an aristocratic family in the republic. According to Rasul Kudaev’s motherii, “the Kabardian village Vernhny Akbash used to be called Astemirovo; it was named after a prince’s family”. Under the Soviet regime the Astemirovs were punished and expelled from Kabardino-Balkaria and Astemirov’s family could only return decades later. Furthermore, Anzor’s father had always been interested in Islam and Anzor from his childhood read the Koran in Arabic. Hardly surprisingly, when in the early 90s the local Muslim community had proposed funding for Islamic education in the Middle East, Anzor Astemirov went to Riyadh.

When ambitious Astemirov returned to Nalchik in the mid-90s, he tried to establish his authority in the local Muslim community. But despite his high hopes, Astemirov always ended up in secondary roles: he was deputy to the Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat leader Musa Mukozhev, and he was second after Nakhushev at the Institute of Islamic studies.

This proved to be the weakness, which was later understood and used by Shamil Basayev. It seemed that Basayev started planning the operation in Kabardino-Balkaria in the fall of 2004. After the raid on Ingushetia he had a large amount of weapons and ammunition in his possession, with only a small part of it used in September in Beslan.

In November 2004 Basayev sent his personal envoy Ingush Illes Gorchkhanov to Nalchik with a letter to the local Islamists calling them to organize a revolt similar to that which had happened in Ingushetia. Gorchkhanov had himself been involved in the attack on Ingushetia, so he promised to share his experience with local militants. Gorchkhanov was put in charge of transporting the weapons from Chechnya to hideouts in Kabardino-Balkaria.

At the same time the republic’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, partly because of the Beslan effect, increased its pressure on local young Muslims. Anzor Astemirov and his closest friend Rasul Kudaev decided to leave Russia. Only Kudaev succeeded: he got to Jordan but then Astemirov was refused travel documents.

It’s still unclear when Astemirov met Basayev for the first time, but in early 2005 Basayev chose him as a would-be leader of the uprising, playing on his ambitions.

In December 2004 Astemirov was forced to leave Nalchik, as he was wanted by law enforcement agencies for his involvement in the December 2004 attack on the local HQ of the anti-drug agency (the attack had been organized by Gorchkhanov to grab more weapons and to test the military skills of local militants). At the same time the local Ministry of Internal Affairs intensified their raids on Jamaat controlled mosques.

By the autumn of 2005 all three leaders of the Kabardino-Balkarian Jamaat were in hiding: Anzor Astemirov had gone up into the mountains, Ruslan Kudaev had gone to Jordan, and Musa Mukozhev’s whereabouts had been unknown for some months.

At the same time the political situation in the republic had changed suddenly: in September Valery Kokov lost his post of President of Kabardino-Balkaria, and was replaced by businessman Arsen Kanokov who appeared to show some signs of liberalism. But it failed to change Shamil Basayev’s plans.

According to the Russian secret services, the militants were preparing an attack on 4th November — the day that marked the end of the sacred month of Ramadan. This script changed when the jamaat’s courier was captured in Moscow with $22.000 to buy portable radio sets and bio-toilets for the insurgents. On 11th October Basayev and Astemirov held an emergency Shura (the meeting of insurgents), and agreed to shift the date of an attack to 13th October. Six groups and 16 subgroups were formed, including four groups in reserve (each consisted of from 8 to 15 people), for attacks on 15 targets.

But in the early morning of 13th October the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, obviously having got wind of coming revolt, suddenly approached the Landysh settlement (in the Nalchik suburbs) where one of the insurgent groups was busy preparing for the attack. On their way to the settlement militia came under insurgent fire, and at 9 am shooting was heard all across Nalchik.

In total 13 law enforcement facilities were attacked: Centre T (counter-terrorist centre), 43rd Border Detachment, the FSB Directorate building, the republic Interior Ministry, three police stations, the Directorate for the Struggle Against Organized Crime 6th Department, Directorate of the Federal Prison Service, a patrol post regiment, the hunting shop “Arsenal”, road patrol service check-point Khasanya and an OMON (Internal Special Troops) base.

The operation to counter the insurgents was led by the head of the local GrOU1, but only for the first four hours. At 1 pm the Operations staff was headed by Yevgeny Vnukov, the commander of the internal troops for The North-Caucasian District. But in reality every agency started to fight on its own. The town was saved only because from the military point of view, the attack was hopeless: isolated groups of 10-15 rebels attacked in broad daylight such heavily guarded targets as police stations and the local FSB headquarters.

And from the very beginning it was clear that the attack was ill-prepared. Many militants learned about the coming operation not even a day but a mere few hours before it actually started. 27-year-old Arsen Boziev was given no explanation, he was simply told along with two friends to get to the road service station at 8 am. There they met the group’s senior member, Albert Zhekamukhov, - who took them up to a racetrack where every member of the group was given a Kalashnikov and a grenade. The group was then ordered to attack the HQ of border troops. Boziev was wounded in the leg and captured by the Internal troops.

18-years-old Islam Tukhuzhev was luckier: he was given a Makarov pistol with one cartridge, but no orders f, therefore all the day he ran aimlessly around the streets of Nalchik only to finally surrender a few days later.

Larissa, the mother of 27-year-old Aslan Thamokov, told the authors that for the last four years her son had been living in Moscow working at a market, and he took part in the uprising spontaneously: "On 6th October Aslan went to Nalchik to marry his beloved girl. At midnight on 12th October his friend Zalim Ulimbashev came to our house and brought Aslan with him". The next day his son found himself in settlement Landysh, among those militants who were the first to attack the policemen in the early morning on 13 October.

It seemed the masterminds made a conscious decision to keep the militants in the dark, considering them to be not worth saving. In the majority of groups not only did the ordinary rank and file have no combat experience but neither did their commanders; for many it was the first time they had handled weapons. Out of 150 fighters only 20 had some sort of acquaintance with military matters (a few had fought in Abkhazia in 1992). The majority of the attackers had no plan of attack for the target. The groups’ ringleaders divided the people they had collected into subgroups only on entrance to the target. These tactics were anything but successful: at 9 am a group of 15 fighters in three vehicles moved on the OMON (Internal troops) base, the vehicles halted 500 meters away and only then were weapons issued to the attackers. In the approach to the building the militants were fired on, two were killed immediately, after which part of the raiders scattered.

It also turned out there was no general plan of withdrawal from the town after the tasks had been completed. The insurgents were told that around 1pm Basayev should have communicated new plans via portable radio. Given that the Nalchik attack was planned by the same people who had organized a successful raid on Ingushetia in the summer of 2004, this was a serious and strange miscalculation. The withdrawal plan could not be announced on a portable radio set at the height of the fighting that would break the basic rules of conspiracy. It turns out Basayev simply decided to not provide the attackers with a withdrawal plan. In striking difference with the raid on Ingushetia, he also decided not to take part in the battle.

During the fighting Basayev was located on the cable route area on Mount Sosruko from where he could see the whole town, observing the events taking place, but did not throw his own detachment, numbering over 150 people into the battle, quietly leaving by the route he planned beforehand. Astemirov also did not personally lead his jamaat into the storm. There is no information that Astemirov took part personally in combat actions, and during the battle he stayed together with Basayev.

Fighting in Nalchik continued for two days. In the end 92 militants were killed, 65 people were arrested, and 35 policemen and 12 civilians were killed.

Brutal repressions followed: captured militants were tortured and beaten. Eager for vengeance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs acted so brutally, that punishment, designed to extort confession and enforce submission, became almost an end in itself. The new head of the republic Arsen Kanokov vacillated about retaliation, both defending reprisals and denying that they had occurred.

By the time the mothers of insurgents had given journalists photographs of their sons who had been beaten during interrogation, the media had already become deeply divided over how to report the tragedy.

Before 13th October Mukozhev and Astemirov had enjoyed good publicity, giving interviews on the human rights abuses experienced by young Muslims in Kabardino-Balkaria to Russian newspapers including Kommersant and Novaya gazeta. The Russian newswire agency Regnum constantly reported the Jamaat’s activity.

Thus the militants who had attacked that peaceful town only yesterday had been young Muslims, the victims of repressions. The most important question was how to refer to these same people after their attack: terrorists, victims, militants? The authorities and pro-Kremlin media were desperate to present them as terrorists. The consequences were obvious: there was no way of publishing the terrorist’s opinion because it is prohibited by law. The official version was based on the following facts: Basayev, clearly a terrorist, was behind this attack, civilians were killed during the siege and the entire town was terrorized. At the same time the authorities turned a deaf ear and blind eye to the fact that the militants didn’t deliberately attack civilians and that all their targets were military or law enforcement facilities.

Outraged by official propaganda, some independent media took the line that the young militants were forced to attack because of repression, and that they were acting out of desperation.

This point of view was supported not only by the relatives of the militants, but by the former leaders of the nationalist movements: all of a sudden Yuri Shanibov, former head of the Confederation of the peoples of the Caucasus, appeared in public claiming that the militants were just victims provoked by the brutal regime of former president Valery Kokov.

The authorities refused to return the bodies of dead militants for funerals and their relatives organized a public campaign against this barbaric decision. The campaign appeared an excellent excuse for reviving all sorts of political opposition in the republic, and the nationalists were amongst the first.

But the nationalist aspirations were destroyed by the members of Kabardino-Balkarian jamaat who survived the attack.

Anzor Astemirov issued a statement on the same website with accusations against nationalistsiv. By then the insurgent movement had long expanded beyond the borders of Chechnya: in May 2005 the so-called Caucasian Front of the Armed forces of Chechen Republic-Ichkeria had been established with the network of combat jamaats in all North-Caucasian republics, called sectors, to organize hostilities all over the Caucasus including Stavropol and Krasnodar. Astemirov also destroyed the myth that the jamaat had been provoked to revolt: eager to gain his reputation inside a jihadi movement, he claimed that jamaat had chosen the militant way from the start of the Second Chechen war in 2000v.

It was quite remarkable that the Shura which saw the announcement of the creation of the Caucasian front had been held in Nalchik. Astemirov (who by then had adopted the nom de guerre Amir Saifullah) had been appointed amir of the Kabardino-Balkarian sector of the Front, and he soon came to understand that his only chance was to replace Caucasian nationalism with jihadism. That submersion of the Chechen cause under the broader regional Islamist challenge was confirmed by the declaration in October 2007 of the creation of the Caucasus Emirate.

At last Astemirov got his chance: he was among the few who had supported the idea of the Emirate, and was awarded the status of ideological godfather of the entire jihadist movement in the North Caucasus.

See also:

• Kabardian Insurgent Leader Anzor Astemirov killed