Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan

The radical Wahhabist creed of Islam arrived to Dagestan from Tajikistan in the late 1980s. Its spread was substantially sponsored by wealthy Islamist supporters in Saudi Arabia. In the early 1990s, the Dagestani Wahhabists were led by Bagaudtin Kebedov, who had previously worked with Akhmed-Kadji Akhtaev in the Islamic Party of Revival, until falling out with the more moderate Akhtaev. During the First Chechen War, Bagaudtin traveled to Chechnya to organise Wahhabist militant cells. In Dagestan he became the Amir of Islamic Community of Dagestan. Bagaudtin was the spiritual father of the Dagestani Wahhabism.[1]

Bagaudtin Kebedov's teachings were put into practice in an area consisting of his home town Kadar, Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi in the Buinaksk District in central Dagestan southwest of the capital Makhachkala. This area became known as the Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan (a djamaat is traditional Dagestani political unit consisting of a village or group of villages).[1] The majority of the villagers accepted the radical Wahhabist ideology, and young people from all over Dagestan and the Northern Caucasus arrived in the Djamaat in search of "pure Islam". While Bagaudtin was the spiritual leader of the djamaat, in military affairs the Arab warlord Ibn al-Khattab, who had lived in Karamakhi before travelling to Chechnya and married a local woman, was the most influential person.[2]

On 21 June 1996, the administrative head of Kadar was murdered. The villagers blamed local Wahhabists, and the suspects fled to Chechnya. The incident escalated the tensions between the traditional Muslims and Djamaat's Wahhabists. On 12 May 1997, an armed conflict involving more than 450 gunmen erupted between the traditionalists and the Wahhabists at a funeral in Chabanmakhi. The Wahhabists had demanded that the participants pray toward Mecca instead of toward the coffin, which was in violation of traditional practices. 2 people died until the firing stopped, possibly due to a rumour that an army of Wahhabists were about to arrive from Chechnya as reinforcements.[1]

The Dagestani government responded by sending hundreds of policemen and Ministry of Interior OMON special forces troops to the region to prevent further conflict. Several high-ranking officials also arrived to the scene, including Deputy Prime Minister Said Amirov. They promised that the killers would be found and prosecuted.[1]

In 1997, the Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan and Chechen separatists led by commander Salman Raduyev, signed an alliance with the stated goal of creating an independent Islamist state in the Caucasus. Raduyev had previously launched the deadly terrorist attack into the Dagestani town of Kizlyar. After signing the alliance, the Djamaat militants joined the International Islamic Battalion, consisting of Chechen and international Islamists led by Ibn Al-Khattab, to launch a raid against the Russian 136th Armoured Brigade in Gerlakh.[1]

Tensions around the villages continued to escalate during 1998. On 21 May 1998, Wahhabist gunmen seized the police station of Karamakhi, beating two policemen and stealing weapons. Two days later, the Dagestani government responded by sending 100 Ministry of Interior troops to the area. Their aim was to take the road leading to Karamakhi, but an assault by hundreds of gunmen forced them to withdraw. The next day, on 24 May 1998, the Wahhabists deployed a small army from the villages Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi and Kadar. The militants were heavily armed, carrying grenade launchers, mortars and automatic weapons. Struggling to bring the situation under control, the Dagestani government entered negotiations with the militants. They reached an agreement according to which prisoners would be swapped and both sides would be separated. This essentially meant that the territory of the Islamic Djamaat was no longer under government control.[1]

On 5 July 1998, a congress attended by 1,000 armed militants was held in Karamakhi resulted in the Djamaat declaring independence and demands for the resignation of the Dagestani government, withdrawal of all federal troops and a union with Chechnya. By 10 August, the militants were controlling roads and traffic through the area, threatening to separate Dagestan's capital Makhachkala from the west of the republic. Dagestani authorities now began extensive negotiations with the militants and started to seriously consider using military force against the villages.[1]

On 1 September 1998, an agreement was signed between the Djamaat representatives and the government of Dagestan, in which the militants agreed to "live according to the constitution", and the government agreed to let Wahhabi leaders to enforce order in the villages. On 5 September, a terrorist attack took place in Makhachkala. Apartment buildings near to the homes of the Dagestani Prime Minister and Mayor of the capital were bombed and demolished; however, no group claimed responsibility. After this, relative calm was restored, but Dagestani and Russian influence in the republic diminished. The September 1998 agreement was in effect a capitulation of the central government in favour of the Djamaat's Islamist radicals.[1]

While the fighting between the Wahhabists and Dagestani troops was ongoing on 4 September, the first attack of the Russian apartment bombings occurred; 64 people were killed in a blast that destroyed an apartment building in the nearby city of Buynaksk.[4]

A day after the blast on 5 September, Basayev and Khattab launched a second incursion into Dagestan, ostensibly with the aim of relieving the Islamic Djamaat from the government attack. On 9 September, 94 Russian civilians were killed when an explosion destroyed their apartment building in Moscow. More terrorist attacks followed: on 13 September, 118 people died in a bombing in Moscow; on 16 September, a truck-bomb destroyed an apartment building in Volgodonsk.[4]

According to Robert Bruce Ware, a leading specialist on Dagestan, the apartment bombings were likely perpetrated by the Dagestani Wahhabists as a retribution for the federal attack on the Islamic Djamaat.[4]