The Second Chechen War took place in Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, from August 1999 to April 2009.
Samir Saleh Abdullah al-Suwailim, commonly known as Ibn al-Khattab or Emir Khattab, was a Saudi Arabian Salafi pan-Islamic mujahid. Though he fought in many conflicts, he is best known for his involvement in the First Chechen War and the Second Chechen War, which he participated in after moving to Chechnya at the invitation of the Akhmadov brothers.
The 1999–2000 battle of Grozny was the siege and assault of the Chechen capital Grozny by Russian forces, lasting from late 1999 to early 2000. This siege and assault of the Chechen capital resulted in the widespread devastation of Grozny. In 2003, the United Nations designated Grozny as the most destroyed city on Earth due to the extensive damage it suffered. The battle had a devastating impact on the civilian population. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 8,000 civilians were killed during the siege, making it the bloodiest episode of the Second Chechen War.
Human rights violations were committed by the warring sides during the second war in Chechnya. Both Russian officials and Chechen rebels have been regularly and repeatedly accused of committing war crimes including kidnapping, torture, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, decapitation, and assorted other breaches of the law of war. International and humanitarian organizations, including the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, have criticized both sides of the conflict for blatant and sustained violations of international humanitarian law.
In June 2000, the North Caucasian Chechen separatist-led Chechen insurgents added suicide bombing to their tactics in their struggle against Russia. Since then, there have been dozens of suicide attacks within and outside the republic of Chechnya, resulting in thousands of casualties among Russian security personnel and civilians. The profiles of the suicide bombers have varied, as have the circumstances surrounding the bombings.
The Shatoy ambush was a significant event during the First Chechen War. It occurred near the town of Shatoy, located in the southern mountains of Chechnya. Chechen insurgents under the leadership of their Arab-born commander, Ibn al-Khattab, would launch an attack on a large Russian Armed Forces army convoy resulting in a three hour long battle.
The 2000 Zhani-Vedeno ambush took place on March 29, 2000, when a mechanized column of Russian Military Police troops was ambushed in the southern Vedensky District of Chechnya. As the result of the attack on the convoy and on Russian relief forces, scores of Russian special police and paramilitary troops were killed or captured. 40 OMON officers in the column and six in a relief column were killed and 11 more were taken hostage, 9 of whom were executed soon after Russian command refused to swap them for the arrested russian commander Yuri Budanov.
The Grozny OMON friendly fire incident took place on March 2, 2000, when an OMON unit from Podolsk, supported by paramilitary police from the Sverdlovsk Oblast in armored vehicles, opened friendly fire on a motorized column of OMON from Sergiyev Posad, which had just arrived in Chechnya to replace them.
Muslim Ilyasov † 
Amir Aslambek 
