Ruslan Tagirovich Khuchbarov (12 November 1972 – 3 September 2004), was an

Ingush Ingush may refer to: * Ingush language, Northeast Caucasian language * Ingush people, an ethnic group of the North Caucasus See also *Ingushetia (disambiguation) Ingushetia is a federal republic and subject of Russia. Ingushetia may also refer ...

militant nicknamed "

Polkovnik (; ) is a military rank used mostly in Slavic-speaking countries which corresponds to a colonel in English-speaking states, ''coronel'' in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking states and ''oberst'' in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countr ...

" (the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

for

Colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

) notorious for his leading role in the 2004

Beslan school hostage crisis The Beslan school siege, also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or the Beslan massacre, was an Islamic terrorist attack that started on 1 September 2004. It lasted three days, and involved the imprisonment of more than 1,100 peop ...

Biography

Khuchbarov was an ethnic Ingush from the village of Galashki in

Ingushetia Ingushetia or Ingushetiya, officially the Republic of Ingushetia, is a republic of Russia located in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe. The republic is part of the North Caucasian Federal District, and shares land borders with the country o ...

. His body was reportedly identified after he was killed during the storming of the school. According to FSB information obtained by the Russian newspaper '' Vremya Novostey'', Khuchbarov was living with his

girlfriend and their son in

Oryol Oblast Oryol Oblast (), also known as Orlovshchina (), is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Oryol. Population: Geography It is loc ...

, until he was accused of murder and attempted murder of two members of the

Armenian diaspora The Armenian diaspora refers to the communities of Armenians outside Armenia and other locations where Armenians are considered an indigenous population. Since antiquity, Armenians have established communities in many regions throughout the world. ...

and declared wanted in 1998. Khuchbarov then went into hiding and moved to Chechnya, where he underwent extensive combat training in a camp of the field commander Ibragimov and took the nickname Colonel, collaborating with

Arbi Barayev Arbi Alautdinovich Barayev (; 27 May 1974 – 22 June 2001) was a Chechen warlord who in 1996 became the founder and first leader of the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) in Chechnya. Nicknamed "The Terminator", Barayev and the SPIR were ...

. Eventually he joined the brigade of

Shamil Basayev Shamil Salmanovich Basayev (; ; 14 January 1965 – 10 July 2006), also known by his '' kunya'' Abu Idris, was a Chechen guerrilla leader who served as a senior military commander in the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He held the rank ...

and became one of his closest associates in Ingushetia. Khuchbarov and one other rebel, Amriev, were responsible for the Galashki ambush in Ingushetia on 11 May 2000, killing 18 soldiers and officers and wounding three. The bombing of the Ingushetian Department of the FSB on 15 September 2003, when three people died and 32 were seriously injured, has also been ascribed to Khuchbarov. He was involved in the training of

suicide attack A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is ofte ...

ers. Russian sources initially reported "Polkovnik" to be Ali Taziyev, a former Ingush policeman-turned-rebel who was declared legally dead in 2000. However, this was later refuted by the Russian

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

s. Investigators then alleged this was the same person as

Akhmed Yevloyev Ali Musaevich Taziev (, ), also known as Akhmed Yevloev (; ), Magomet Yevloyev, and Emir Magas; born 19 August 1974) is the former leader of both the Ingushetia-based Ingush Jamaat and as the military wing of the Caucasus Emirate. On 30 Septe ...

, an Ingush terrorist leader also said to be Ali Taziyev, but those reports were declared incorrect later: although he had similar features as Yevloyev, his facial profile was a lot different. In addition, Yevloyev turned out to be still alive.Chechnya - The week in brief: 16 - 22 July 2007

ReliefWeb ReliefWeb (RW) is a humanitarian information portal founded in 1996. , it hosts more than one million humanitarian situation reports, press releases, evaluations, guidelines, assessments, maps and infographics. The portal is an independent sourc ...

, July 19, 2007

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khuchbarov, Ruslan 1972 births 2004 deaths Beslan hostagetakers Ingush people People of the Chechen wars Male murderers