Dagestan] This [terrorism like in Moscow] will go on because those whose loved ones, whose women and children are being killed, will also try to use force to stop their adversaries."

Khattab told Al-Watan Al-Arabi that the war "had shifted to all Russian cities and would be directed against all Russians." When specifically asked, he refused to condemn the Moscow bombings. Vyacheslav Izmailov, a respected news commentator on Chechnya, thought that he knew why Khattab reacted this way.

Khattab's Terror Campaign

Going on Russian NTV television, Izmailov said that very reliable sources in Chechnya had told him that Khattab, just after his initial defeat in Dagestan, recruited former Russian military personnel for a terror campaign across the Russian Federation. The men were divided into four teams to carry out bombings in:
* Dagestan
* Moscow
* St. Petersburg
* Rostov-on-Don

Each team was given money to buy what it needed and to rent premises to hide explosives intended for the bombings.

On 15 September, the Islamic Liberation Army of Dagestan claimed responsibility for the Moscow bombings. Was this the same Islamic Army of Dagestan that Khattab was in charge of? The Russian government's case says it is.

The Role of Achimez Gochiyayev

The Russian federal prosecutor's office alleges that Khattab paid Chechen national Achimez Gochiyayev, thirty-one, $500,000 to carry out the attacks at:
* Guryanova Street, #6 Kashirskoye Shosse
* Borisovskiye Prudy

...and then helped hide Gochiyayev and his accomplices in Chechnya.

Gochiyayev, the mastermind, was a terrorist sleeper. Born in 1970 and raised in the Karachaevo-Cherkessia Republic, in 1997, he closed down a construction business in Moscow and went to Chechnya to train in Khattab's camps. After graduation, he went back to his home in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, where he established and ran his own Wahhabi jamaat (Muslim Society #3) until Khattab activated him. Gochiyayev, using the alias Mukhita Laipanov, rented the basements of the three apartment buildings in Moscow for "commercial storage."

The Explosives Transport

Five of Gochiyayev's fourteen accomplices have been caught and charged with transporting the truckload of sugar sacks filled with explosives (hexogen) to Moscow. The route the explosives took to get to Moscow was from Urus-Martan to a food warehouse in Kislovodsk, where the hexogen was stored in a rented truck until late August. Ruslan Magiayev, Timur Batchayev, Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, and Adam Dekkushev then transferred the explosives to another vehicle and drove them to Moscow. There, Gochiyayev registered in a hotel using his brother-in-law's name (Taukan Frantsuzov) and then supervised placement of the explosives in the rented basements of the three apartment buildings.