Allegiance Caucasian Front Engagements Second Chechen War | Type Guerrilla | |
Active 2006-12 May 2009 As Vilayat Iriston Commander Emir Saad (Alan Digorsky) | ||
Kataib al-Khoul, also known as the Ossetian Jamaat and Vilayat Iriston, was a militant Islamist organization connected to numerous attacks against the local and federal security forces in the Russian region of North Ossetia–Alania in the North Caucasus. It was part of the Caucasian Front of the Second Chechen War. Its existence inside a republic which is largely Russian Orthodox had led to denial by officials who refused to recognise that an Islamic insurgency group existed in Ossetia, and instead blamed the attacks on the Ingush Jamaat.
The Ossetian Jamaat, closely associated with the separatist conflict in nearby Chechnya, was established by Alan Digorsky, better known as Emir Saad. Its existence was first mentioned in March 2006 after increased insurgency in parts of North-Ossetia. The group announced that it fought in favor of Chechnya's independence and was integrated into the Caucasian Front by the decree of the then President of Ichkeria, Sheikh Abdul Halim. Since the proclamation of the Caucasus Emirate in 2007, Kata’ib al-Khoul had similar goals to other Islamic nationalist insurgent groups in the region, as it sought to end Russian control of North Ossetia and establish an Ossetian Islamic state called Iriston.
Kataib al-Khoul claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in North Ossetia. It claimed responsibility for the February 2006 bombings in casinos and gambling clubs in the center of Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, which resulted in the closure of all the gambling clubs and casinos in the republic, as well as a number of assassinations and acts of sabotage, including the May 2006 downing of a military helicopter near Vladikavkaz that resulted in the death of 15 Russian soldiers (among them several high-ranking military officials), the March 2008 assassination of the head of North Ossetia's anti-organized crime unit Mark Metsayev, and the November 2008 assassination of the Mayor of Vladikavkaz Vitaly Karayev.
On 12 May 2009, Emir of the Caucasus Emirate Dokka Umarov issued a communique subsuming the rebel structures active in North Ossetia into the Emirate's Vilayat Galgaycho subdivision.