Аслан Масхадов: Чечен саяхатшысы және әскери қолбасшысының өмірі мен қызметі

Chechen politician and military commander

Aslan (Khalid) Aliyevich Maskhadov (Асла́н (Хали́д) Али́евич Масха́дов; ; 21 September 1951 – 8 March 2005) was a Soviet and Chechen politician and military commander who served as the third president of the unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the establishment of the de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Maskhadov was elected President of Chechnya in January 1997. Following the start of the Second Chechen War in August 1999, he returned to leading the guerrilla resistance against the Russian army. De facto Ichkeria ceased to exist at the beginning of 2000. Until his death, Maskhadov was President in exile. He was killed in Tolstoy Yurt, a village in northern Chechnya, in March 2005.

On 21 September 1951, Aslan Aliyevich Maskhadov was born in Karaganda Region of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of the Soviet Union, in the small village of Shakai, during the mass deportation of the Chechen people ordered in 1944 by Joseph Stalin. His family was from the Alaroy teip (of the Alkhan nek'e branch). In 1957, his family returned to Chechnya, where they settled in Zebir Yurt, Nadterechny District. Maskhadov joined the Soviet Army, trained in the neighbouring Georgian SSR and graduated from the Tbilisi Artillery School in 1972. He then graduated with honours from the Leningrad Kalinin Higher Artillery in 1981. He was posted to Hungary with a self propelled artillery regiment until 1986 and then from 1986 in the Baltic Military District. He served from 1990 as the chief of staff of Soviet missile and artillery forces in Vilnius, capital of the Lithuanian SSR. In January 1991, Maskhadov participated in the January Events, the seizure of the television tower by Soviet troops (which he regretted later), but didn't participate in the assault itself. By the end of 1996, when Maskhadov assumed his office, nearly half a million people (40% of Chechya prewar population) had been internally displaced and lived in refugee camps or overcrowded villages. The economy was destroyed and the warlords had no intention to disband their militias. Under such circumstances, Maskhadov's political fortunes began to wane. His political standing within Chechnya became increasingly insecure as he lost control to Basayev and other warlords. Even his Vice President Arsanov became his political enemy. Just like in the years before the First Chechen War under Dudayev, the years of Chechen independence were notorious for organized crime, including kidnapping, leading to several public executions of criminals. Maskhadov attempted with only limited success to curb the growth of Wahhabism and other fundamentalist Muslim groups supported by Basayev, producing a split in the Chechen separatist movement between Islamic fundamentalism and secular Chechen nationalists. In February 1999, as a concession to radical Islamists, Maskhadov introduced Islamic Sharia law. The Sharia courts that were established sentenced people to death, flogging, executing people for crimes such as adultery. Maskhadov survived assassination attempts on his life three times, on 23 July 1998 and 21 March and 10 April in 1999, in which the attackers used anti tank missiles and bombs. Russian secret services were officially blamed.

As of 2005, different versions of Maskhadov’s death existed. According to an official one announced on 8 March 2005 by the head of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) Nikolay Patrushev, less than a month after Maskhadov announced the cease fire, a special forces unit of FSB had:" carried out an operation in the settlement of Tolstoy Yurt, as a result of which the international jihadist and leader of armed groups Maskhadov was killed, and his closest comrades in arms detained. "He said the special operations unit had intended to capture Maskhadov alive for interrogation but killed him accidentally with a grenade thrown into a bunker where Maskhadov was hiding. Four Chechens, Vakhit Murdashev, Viskhan Hadzhimuradov, Skanarbek Yusupov, and Ilias Iriskhanov, were captured in the raid. According to ballistic evidence at their trial in the Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic, Maskhadov was allegedly killed by a shot from the pistol of Viskhan Hadzhimuradov, his nephew and bodyguard. Hadzhimuradov, however, had testified that he does not remember whether he shot Maskhadov or not since he was stunned by an explosion but after the capture, Hadzhimuradov reportedly said: "My uncle always told me to shoot him if he is wounded and his capture is imminent. He said that if he is taken prisoner, he would be mistreated like Saddam Hussein had been". In 2006, they lodged a complaint to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on "illegal" refusal by Russian authorities at the time to return Maskhadov's body back to the family.

He married at the age of 17. His wife Kusama holds a graduate degree in teaching. They had two children: a son, who took part in military action during the First Russian Chechen War, and a daughter.