Supyan Abdullayev

Supyan Abdullayev (Russian: Супьян Абдуллаев; November 8, 1956 – March 28, 2011 ) was the vice president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He was appointed to this position (vacant since the death of Shamil Basayev) on March 19, 2007, by the President of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Doku Umarov. He was considered the most senior figure after Umarov in the ranks of the anti-Russian Caucasian Emirate and his one possible successor.

Abdullayev was commander of the Jundullah Brigade, linked to the Vedeno-based wing of the Chechen resistance movement which was close to Basayev. He was primarily a religious figure rather than a military man, alike Abdul-Halim Sadulayev.

Biography
Abdullayev was born in the Kazakh SSR. He was a member of the Chechen Tsadahroi teip. In the late 1980s Abdullayev, together with the Chechn Islamist leader Movladi Udugov, was a founder member of the Islamic Renaissance Party established in the Soviet Union.

After the First Chechen War, Supyan Abdullaev held the rank of Colonel and the deputy of Islam Khalimov following Khalimov's appointment to the post of minister of internal affairs in 1997. Both of the men left the ministry following the gun battle in Gudermes between the Salafites and the supporters of then-President Aslan Maskhadov on July 15, 1998. In the aftermath, Abdullaev grew distant from politics and was well known as a “second stringer.”

During the Second Chechen War, Abdullayev entered the ranks of the resistance in the very beginning, started out as a leader of a jamaat and eventually became the commander of a front and a member of the Maskhadov's government, racing the level of Brigadier General. Even though he was a jamaat member, remained loyal to Aslan Maskhadov until the death of the latter.

Supyan Abdullayev developed into one of the most senior ranking field commanders of the Caucasus Emirate, and the chief ideologue of the whole movement. His was named as Doku Umarov's deputy Emir.

Abdullayev was killed in a raid by Russian security forces on a rebel camp in the Caucasus mountains on March 28, 2011. In this raid The Emirate's overall leader was thought to have been killed, but it later surfaced that he survived the air strikes upon the rebel camp.