Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs
Riyad-us Saliheen (Russian: Риядус-Салихийн, also transliterated as Riyadus-Salikhin, Riyad us-Saliheyn or Riyad us-Salihiin) was the name of a small "martyr" (shahid) force of suicide attackers. Its original leader (amir) was the Chechen separatist commander Shamil Basayev. In February and March 2003, the group was designated by the United States and subsequently by the United Nations as a terrorist organization. After several years of inactivity, Riyad-us Saliheen was reactivated by the Caucasus Emirate in 2009 under the command of Said Buryatsky; following his death, Aslan Byutukayev became its new leader. History This highly autonomous, small (probably only 20 to 50 members at any given time) group was first founded and led by Shamil Basayev under the name of Riyadus Salihiin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs (later also known as Islamic Brigade of Shaheeds) in October 1999 as a "special battalion to carry out acts of sabotage" in retaliation for the Grozny missile attack. Basayev took responsibility for a series of suicide attacks in Chechnya and Russia, including the truck bombing which destroyed the Chechen Republic's government headquarters in Grozny and killed over 80 in 2002, the truck bomb attack at Chechnya's FSB headquarters in Znamenskoye which killed more than