Ibn Al-Khattab

   / Samir Saleh Abdullah Al-Suwailem

(1969–2002)

   Guerilla leader and terrorist. Born on the Jordan–Saudi Arabia border to an Arab father and Circassian mother, he left the Middle East to fight on the side of the mujahideen resistance in the Soviet-Afghan War. He is then thought to have participated on the Azeri side in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, before joining the Islamists in the Tajik Civil War. He also claimed to have fought in Bosnia in defense of the Muslim population against Serbia. During the first Chechen War, he engaged in propaganda, fund-raising, and guerilla fighting against Russian troops. During the conflict, he became a friend of the Chechen commander Shamil Basayev. After the war, he established himself as the leader of a battalion of Arabs and other foreign Muslim fighters. He also came to the attention of Interpol and other international agencies as a supporter and perpetrator of acts of terrorism. In 1999, al-Khattab and Basayev launched an incursion into Dagestan, which in conjunction with the apartment bombings thought to be the work of al-Khattab, triggered the second Chechen War. He was killed on 20 March 2002, reportedly by a poisoned letter given to him by an FSB-employed hit man.

   See also Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya; Counterterrorism.