59 Facts About Dokka Umarov

Doku Khamatovich Umarov, known as Dokka Umarov as well as by his Arabized name of Dokka Abu Umar, was a Chechen militant in the North Caucasus.

Dokka Umarov was active mostly in south-western Chechnya, near and across the borders with Ingushetia and Georgia.

Between 2006 and 2007, following the death of his predecessor Sheikh Abdul Halim, Dokka Umarov became the underground President of Ichkeria of the unrecognized government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the post that Dokka Umarov eventually abolished himself when he renounced and abandoned Chechen nationalism in favour of Caucasian pan-Islamism and jihadist ideology.

In 2010, Dokka Umarov abortively resigned from the position and appointed Aslambek Vadalov as the new Emir of the Caucasus Emirate, but soon afterwards issued a statement annulling the previous declaration and stating he would remain in his position and rebel Sharia court ruled in favour of Dokka Umarov over the rift, following which most other Russian rebel leaders re-swore allegiance to him.

For years, Dokka Umarov had been the top terrorist leader in Russia.

Dokka Umarov had taken responsibility for several attacks on civilian targets since 2009, including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing.

In 2012, Dokka Umarov ordered his followers to halt attacks on the civilian population of Russia, while leaving military and security personnel as legitimate targets.

Dokka Umarov was internationally wanted by the governments of Russia and the United States.

On 18 March 2014, Dokka Umarov's death was reported by the Caucasus Emirate-associated Islamist website Kavkaz Center, which offered no details but did say his death was confirmed by the Command of the Caucasus Emirate.

Dokka Umarov was announced to be replaced by the Caucasus Emirate's senior Sharia judge Ali Abu Mukhammad, who then officially confirmed the death of Umarov in a video posted on YouTube.

On 25 September 2017, Russian media reported that the body of Dokka Umarov had possibly been found in a remote mountainous area in Ingushetia.

Dokka Umarov studied at the Oil Institute in Grozny, graduating with a degree in construction engineering.

Dokka Umarov later left the republic for the other parts of the Soviet Union and was reportedly working in the construction in Moscow when the First Chechen War began in December 1994.

Dokka Umarov was married, and believed to have six children, the youngest of whom was born in 2006.

Since 2003, several of Dokka Umarov's relatives, including all of his immediate family, have been kidnapped by "unidentified armed men"; some were promptly released, but the others have disappeared and may be dead.

Dokka Umarov said he returned to Chechnya to fulfill what he called his patriotic duty.

In 1996, Dokka Umarov left the unit because of disagreements with Gelayev and joined the command of Akhmed Zakayev, who had left Gelayev's ranks to lead the splinter unit Wolf.

However, Dokka Umarov was forced to resign from this post, and the council was disbanded due to his failure to stabilise the situation in Chechnya and persistent rumors of his alleged participation in the practice of taking hostages for ransom.

Dokka Umarov began his participation in the Second Chechen War in September 1999, as a field commander, again cooperating closely with Ruslan Gelayev during the Russian siege for Grozny.

In early 2000, Dokka Umarov sustained a serious wound to his face and jaw as he was leaving the surrounded Grozny, and was hospitalized in a neutral country, probably Georgia, alongside the injured and evacuated Zakayev.

Back in Chechnya, Dokka Umarov became the replacement of Isa Munayev on the post of the commander of Southwestern Front, the military region southwest of Grozny that bordered on Georgia and Ingushetia.

Dokka Umarov was regarded as an ally of Shamil Basayev, then based in the south-eastern Vedensky District.

In 2003, Dokka Umarov led his men in the heavy fighting around the town of Shatoy and, according to the Russian sources, ordered the bombing of Ingushetia's FSB headquarters in the Ingush capital of Magas and the attack on electrical infrastructure facilities in the city of Kislovodsk in Stavropol Krai.

The next summer, together with Basayev, Dokka Umarov was one of the leaders of a large-scale raid by Chechen and Ingush fighters that killed scores of Ingushetia's officials and members of the security forces and briefly seized control over the republic's largest town, Nazran.

In May 2005, Dokka Umarov was reportedly seriously hurt when he stepped on an anti-personnel mine.

Dokka Umarov was said to have lost a leg in the blast, but turned out to be only lightly injured and participated in an attack on the village of Roshni-Chu three months later.

In May 2006, Chechen police discovered his headquarters bunker in the center of the village of Assinovskaya on the border with Ingushetia, but Dokka Umarov managed to escape.

On 27 June 2006, Dokka Umarov appointed the maverick Chechen commander Shamil Basayev to the position of vice-president of the separatist government, simultaneously releasing him from his position as first deputy prime minister.

In October 2007, Dokka Umarov posthumously restored the disgraced field commander Arbi Barayev to the rank of brigadier general, which had been stripped by Maskhadov in 1998; this was a considered especially strange move given Barayev's infamy and reputed close links with the FSB.

On 18 August 2006, Dokka Umarov was falsely announced to have surrendered at the Gudermes residence of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Russian-backed leader of Chechnya, under a Russian amnesty provision enacted after Basayev's death.

Dokka Umarov maintained he has no younger brother and the later reports identified the alleged surrenderee as Doku's older brother, Akhmad, instead.

Chechen separatists said that the older Dokka Umarov had disappeared two years before when he supposedly gave up and called it "a PR stunt".

Dokka Umarov spent the winter months traveling across the mountains to the nearby republic of Kabardino-Balkaria to meet with local jamaats fighting Russian authorities in the region and consolidate the Caucasian Front, the pan-Caucasian Islamic militant network set up by Sadulayev.

On 7 October 2007, Dokka Umarov proclaimed the Imarat Kavkaz and at once declared himself its Emir, thereby converting the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria into a vilayat of the new emirate, which would encompass several other republics of Russian Federation.

Zakayev expressed regret that Dokka Umarov had caved to pressure from "provocateurs" and committed a "crime" that undermines the legitimacy of the ChRI.

Prominent Radio Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky reported in November 2007 that Dokka Umarov had again travelled to Kabardino-Balkaria to rest and recuperate for the winter months.

Babitsky said that Dokka Umarov was in a poor state of health after taking a fragmentation wound to his mandible and after his leg was injured in a mine explosion.

Pro-Moscow Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov offered him medical care if Dokka Umarov were to "beg for forgiveness".

On 9 May 2009, Kadyrov claimed Dokka Umarov had been reportedly severely wounded and that four of his bodyguards were killed in an operation commanded by Kadyrov's cousin and deputy, Adam Delimkhanov.

On 1 August 2010, the Russian Islamist website Kavkaz Center claimed Dokka Umarov had officially announced his resignation for health reasons and appointed his military deputy Aslambek Vadalov as his successor.

Dokka Umarov blamed the split in the organization for Muhannad, who was killed by Russian forces in April 2011, paving the way for re-unification.

Dokka Umarov then warned Russia that it would be the target of a new strengthened insurgency as he promised a year of "blood and tears" as a result of the new unity.

On 16 January 2014, Kadyrov claimed Dokka Umarov had been killed by Russian government forces and that his grave was being sought.

On 18 March 2014, the Kavkaz Center announced Dokka Umarov had been "martyred".

Dokka Umarov has personally taken responsibility for attacks in which dozens of civilians have been killed, and has been implicated in others.

Dokka Umarov was sought by the federal government of Russia for alleged crimes including acts of terrorism.

On several occasions, Dokka Umarov firmly denied any involvement in indiscriminate attacks against civilians and questioned its legitimacy and value.

On 31 March 2010, Dokka Umarov claimed responsibility for personally ordering the Moscow Metro bombings which took the lives of 40 civilians.

Dokka Umarov warned that more attacks were to come on Russian soil because of perceived repressions of Chechnya by Prime Minister Putin.

On 7 February 2011, Dokka Umarov claimed responsibility in a video posted online for ordering a suicide bombing at Domodedovo International Airport, Russia's busiest airport.

Dokka Umarov gave this order in response to nationwide protests against the Russian government.

In June 2013 Dokka Umarov, accompanied by his deputy Aslan Byutukayev, called for his followers in and outside the Caucasus to use "maximum force" to ensure the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics do not take place, claiming that Russia's "barbaric actions" in the region had forced him to retaliate.

Doku Dokka Umarov was regarded as the most-wanted man in Russia and was put by the Russian police on Interpol's international wanted list.

In March 2008, Chechnya's chief prosecutor, Valery Kuznetsov, launched a criminal case against Dokka Umarov for "inciting inter-ethnic hatred and calling for the overthrow of the Russian government on the Internet".

The paper noted that the Zakayev-led Chechen separatist government in exile was investigating Dokka Umarov for "attempting to liquidate the independent Chechen state" by declaring the creation of the Caucasus Emirate.

Dokka Umarov was removed from the US State Department's Rewards for Justice list in April 2014.

Dokka Umarov denied that Chechen separatism is linked to al-Qaeda or any other international jihadi groups, saying that the rebels' priority is liberty and independence from Russia and peace for the Caucasus.

In March 2013, Dokka Umarov urged the Chechen diaspora members to not get involved in the Syrian civil war and instead to join his forces in the North Caucasus.

The ideology that Dokka Umarov espoused from the declaration of the Caucasus Emirate until his death would describe him as a Salafist-Takfiri jihadist.