Not long following the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Russian government has killed its own most wanted terrorist, Chechen rebel leader Adbul-Khalim Sadulayev.

PRAGUE, June 17, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov announced on June 17 the death during a special operation in the town of Argun, east of Grozny, of Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, who succeeded Aslan Maskhadov as Chechen president and resistance commander following Maskhadov’s killing in March 2005. Akhmad Zakayev, whom Sadulayev named foreign minister of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria (ChRI) on May 27, confirmed Sadulayev’s death in a telephone interview with RFE/RL’s North Caucasus Service later on June 17.

The Chechen resistance leadership has not yet confirmed Sadulayev’s death. Predictably, both Kadyrov and pro-Moscow Chechen administration head Alu Alkhanov have termed Sadulayev’s demise “a major success” in the campaign to stamp out continuing resistance to the pro-Moscow regime installed in Chechnya six years ago. But in military terms, the impact both in Chechnya and in those neighboring republics of the North Caucasus where the Islamic resistance operates is likely to be negligible, at least in the short term.

The timing is uncanny — something that Russia has gotten really good at. So is the situation. Both Russia and the United States have killed their most wanted terrorists and are elated about that success. Bu their respective wars are also at a point where the conflicts cannot simply be resolved militarily. The resolutions, while obviously different, must be political in nature. The Russians can continue killing Chechen rebels, and the Americans can continue killing jihadis in Iraq, but as long as reasonable compromises are not met, the active and passive support bases for both groups will not shrink.

One of the major aspects of terrorist organizations that people tend to forget is that they are highly decentralized and secretive. Its leadership gives direction, but cannot possibly be involved in day-to-day operations. Cells rarely interact with one another and take on a life of their own. This all means that, ultimately, the organization is a machine that will replace its leaders naturally when they are killed. Neither the death of Zarqawi or Sadulayev means the end of their organizations. Already, there are new leaders who have emerged for both. In Russia, this man’s name is Doku Umarov. He has promised to expand the war further into Russia, while not targeting civilians.

In an interview with the Bulgarian weekly “Politika” (published in the issue for June 9-15 and posted on chechenpress.org on June 17, the morning that his death was announced), Sadulayev noted that in the same way that a session of the War Council in the summer of 2002 formally confirmed him as Maskhadov’s successor, he had publicly designated as his own successor veteran field commander Doku Umarov, whom Sadulayev named vice president exactly one year ago. Sadulayev stressed that the legality of his decree naming Umarov cannot be contested.

In his interview with the Bulgarian weekly, Sadulayev downplayed the possibility of his own death, saying that “there was someone Äto commandÅ before me. And if through the will of Allah I meet my death, there is someone to continue this task even better.” Umarov too has commented that the death of a resistance commander, while regrettable, has minimal impact on the resistance as there is always someone willing and competent to take his place.
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Umarov, who was born in 1964, is one of the most experienced Chechen field commanders, having fought since the beginning of the first Chechen war in 1994. And crucially, he has never been identified as having participated in any resistance operation branded “terrorist” by the Russians. What’s more, in an interview one year ago with RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Umarov categorically rejected inflicting on the Russians the same atrocities that they routinely inflict on the Chechens. “If we resort to such methods, I do not think any of us will be able to retain his human face,” Umarov said. He added that the Chechen resistance en masse does not consider the 2004 Beslan hostage taking was a legitimate response to Russia’s actions in Chechnya.

That rejection of terrorism as a tactic is reminiscent of the prohibition imposed by Maskhadov on conducting military operations against Russian civilians or beyond the borders of Chechnya. But Umarov, in contrast to Maskhadov, affirmed one year ago that the resistance considers it appropriate to expand its activities to other regions of the North Caucasus.

The Ichkerian resistance government that Sadulayev headed with Mashkadov before him isn’t what Russia should necessarily be going after. It represents the people in Chechnya who agree with resistance to Russia which, considering the ongoing war, is a lot. Most of this resistance to Russia doesn’t want to blow up children and theatres. Knowing this, the Russians definitely shouldn’t be doing that. They should be going against the guy who does want to do that. The real terrorist who is still on the loose. The guy who ordered Beslan.

Shamil Basayev. Radio Liberty correspondents can find him, why can’t the Russian government? When Mashkadov was on the brink of making peace with Russia, Basayev attacked Daghestan and initiated the 1999 war that helped bring Putin to power and kill any chance of peace in the North Caucasus. He’s the one, if anyone, that needs to be killed.