The North Caucasus: Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia

[SWJED]

Back in 1998 - 1999 I was the manager of a Marine Corps project supporting the Corps' Urban Warrior program - our goal was to gain the perspective of those who had planned and conducted an urban insurgency against a modern conventional force. Ms. Marie Bennigsen Broxup conducted interviews of 20 Chechen commanders and staff officers in Chechnya. We also conducted an 8-hour seminar with another commander who was visiting the U.S. in 1999.

Three articles / papers were produced based on the interviews:

View From the Wolves' Den - The Chechens and Urban Operations by Dave Dilegge

David Slays Goliath: A Chechen Perspective on the War in Chechnya (1994 - 1996) by LtCol Tim Jackson, USMC

General-Major Tourpal-Ali Kaimov - On Urban Warfare in Chechnya by Dave Dilegge

That said, I was looking through my old files and ran across the original raw / unedited interviews and thought they might be of some interest and maybe useful. Here is the first, will post the others soonest...

Interview: Aslan Maskhadov - Wikipedia: Leader of the separatist movement in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya. He was credited by many with the Chechen victory in the First Chechen War, which allowed for the de facto establishment of an independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Maskhadov became President of the nation in January of 1997 with heavy backup from Moscow. Following the start of the Second Chechen War, he returned to leading the guerrilla movement against the Russian army. He was reported killed in a village in southern Chechnya in March 2005.