'Russia's Bin Laden' — the Terror Leader Who Threatens Olympics

Tuesday, 31 December 2013 11:04 AM EST ET

The evil Chechen warlord believed to be behind the deadly bombings threatening the Winter Olympics is known as "Russia's Bin Laden."

Doku Umarov has survived being shot in the jaw and stepping on a landmine while continuing his bloody jihad to unite northern Caucasus into a single Islamic state ruled by Sharia law, NBC News reports.

"Today in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Palestine, our brothers are fighting," he once said. "Everyone who attacked Muslims wherever they are, are our enemies, common enemies. Our enemy is not Russia only, but everyone who wages war against Islam and Muslims."

Although nobody has taken responsibility for two suicide bomb attacks in the south Russian city of Volgograd, it is widely assumed that Umarov, an insurgent leader from Dagestan, triggered the attacks through his followers.

The self-proclaimed Emir of Caucasus, Umarov released a video last July urging his supporters to attack Russia before the Olympics in Sochi while specifically pointing to the transportation networks as potential targets.

The bombers attacked the rail station on Sunday and a trolleybus on Monday, killing 34 people and injuring 60 in the city of one million people formerly known as Stalingrad. Volgograd is 600 miles northeast of Sochi and a major transportation hub for the region.

In the video, Umarov declared that the Kremlin had insulted their "Russian-killed" Caucasian ancestors by staging a global event like the Winter Games in Sochi, a Black Sea resort close to the border with Georgia.

"We know that on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many Muslims who died and are buried on our territory, today they plan to stage the Olympic Games," he said, adding that, "We, as the Mujahedeen, must not allow this to happen by any means possible."

Umarov's deadly past began with him joining Chechen rebels fighting for independence from Russia, first in a failed war in 1994 and then again in more fighting five years later.

He shot through the ranks until he eventually formed his own mission to create an Islamic state in the North Caucasus. Although he had once decried terrorism, he later decided that attacks on civilians were just revenge for the brutal crackdown by what he terms a "Russian death squad" on insurgents and the separatist movement.

His war of terror began in earnest in 2009 when a group linked to him purportedly bombed a hydro-electric plant in Siberia, killing more than two dozen people. Three months later his rebels were blamed for an explosion that derailed a high-speed train between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, killing 27 people.

"I promise you that war will come to your streets and you will feel it in your lives, feel it on your own skin," Umarov said in a chilling message to Russians at the time.

Umarov, a father-of-six aged around 50, also took the credit for a suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport, which killed 36 people in February 2011, says NBC News.

"More special operations will be carried out in the future," he said in a video posted on the Internet soon afterwards. "Among us there are hundreds of brothers who are prepared to sacrifice themselves. We can at any time carry out operations where we want."

Umarov was also allegedly behind a reported plot to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin that was foiled in 2012.

Related Stories:


© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


Newsfront
The evil Chechen warlord believed to be behind the deadly bombings threatening the Winter Olympics is known as "Russia's Bin Laden."
Umarov,Volgograd,Olympics,terror
577
2013-04-31
Tuesday, 31 December 2013 11:04 AM
Newsmax Media, Inc.

View on Newsmax