Said Buryatsky

Said Buryatsky (10 February 1982 – 2 March 2010) was an Islamist militant leader in the North Caucasus. Buryatsky had been among the most-wanted men in Russia, and he was considered an ideologue leader of the Islamist terrorists in Chechnya and southern Russia. Raised as Buddhist, he reportedly converted to Islam at the age of 15. He studied at a Muslim theological institute in Orenburg, run by one of Russia's official Muslim Spiritual Boards, and then, from 2002-2005, studied in Cairo and Kuwait.

Buryatsky moved to the North Caucasus in late 2007 or early 2008, where he became an important ideologue of the Caucasus Emirate. He criticized Sufi Muslims, critics of the Emirate, and spoke out against the commanders who disagreed with Dokka Umarov.

Buryatsky was reportedly responsible for the reactivation of the Riyadus-Salikhin shahid brigade of suicide bombers originally formed by Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev.