Circling the Lion's Den

Riyadus-Salikhin (Gardens of the Righteous)

Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs
  • Leader -amir Khamzat (Aslan Butukaev), the first leader Shamil Basayev a.k.a Abu-Idris

Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs uses terrorism as part of an effort to secure an independent Muslim state in the North Caucasus. Basayev claimed the group was responsible for the Beslan school hostage crisis of September 1-3, 2004, which culminated in the deaths of about 330 people; simultaneous suicide bombings aboard two Russian civilian airliners in late August 2004; and a third suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway that same month. The RSRSBCM, whose name translates into English as "Requirements for Getting into Paradise," was not known to Western observers before October 2002, when it participated in the seizure of the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow. Designated under EO 13224 in February 2003.

After several years of inactivity, Riyadus Saliheen was reactivated by the Caucasus Emirate in 2009 when the leader of pan-Caucasian mujahideen, Dokka Umarov, announced the revival of the group. Since then the group took responsibility for a series of suicide and other attacks in the Russian republics in North Caucasus and elsewhere, including the 2009 car bombing which killed at least 25 at police headquarters in Nazran, Ingushetia, a car bomb assassination attempt at the Ingush president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and the killing of scores of policemen in numerous smaller suicide attacks in Chechnya and Ingushetia, and since the beginning of 2010 eventually also in Dagestan. It also took responsibility for the 2009 Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro accident, and was blamed by some for the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings. In 2011 it claimed responsibility for the Domodedovo airport suicide bombing.

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