Abu Omar Muhammad Al-Saif

Abu Omar Muhammad Al-Saif (Arabic:أبو عمر السيف; died 11 July 2001) is an arab terrorist and one of the leaders of the armed formations of the Chechen separatists in 1994-2001. One of the most known lieutenants of Ibn al-Khattab. He trained terrorists who carried out a number of terrorist attacks, including the bombings of apartment buildings in Russian cities in September 1999.

Biography Abu Omar studied in religious educational institutions in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In the 1990s he came to Chechnya. During the First Chechen War, he led a small group of militants within Khattab's forces, which blew up Russian troop columns with land mines and mined military units and checkpoints. In December 1997, during the attack on 136th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade military town Abu Omar stepped on a mine and lost his leg.

Together with Khattab and Abu Jafar (whose deputy he was), he opened the "Kavkaz" terrorist training center in Chechnya, located on the outskirts of Serzhen-Yurt. Abu Umar personally taught explosives handling. Among the hundreds of graduates of this center were Denis Saitakov, Achimez Gochiyaev, and other organizers of the apartment building bombings in Russian cities in September 1999. Another terrorist group, trained by Abu Umar, carried out a series of terrorist attacks in Vladikavkaz, Mineralnye Vody, Pyatigorsk, and Nevinnomyssk in 2000–2001.

Shamsuddin Batukaev recalled how, after Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev issued a decree replacing secular courts with Sharia courts, Abu Umar declared that he would be able to quickly train “Sharia judges even from among those who do not speak Arabic.”

He was killed in July 2001 during a special operation by officers of the FSB Special Purpose Center. At the time of his assassination, he led a sabotage group of approximately 20 militants.

A Russian court posthumously recognized him as one of the masterminds behind the terrorist attacks in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in 1999.