Ickerya.com, website of the Honorary Consulate of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in Turkey, has reported that an assassination attempt on well-known Chechen field commandant Tarkhan Gaziyev has been averted in the city of Istanbul on March 13, 2015.

According to the information, Tarkhan Gaziyev, one of the most famous commandants of the Chechen National Liberation Movement, is in Turkey for a while due to his injuries he had arrived there for a medical treatment. Ramzan Kadyrov, head of pro-Kremlin regime in the Russian occupied Chechen territory ordered to eliminate him while he is in Turkey. In this aim, pro-Moscow regime established a hit list which includes Tarkhan Gaziyev and some other Chechen figures who are on the path of Chechnya’s independence struggle; and they prepared 5 different assassination teams. One of this groups had a speacial role, they want to kill two birds with one stone as elimating an important figure on the Chechen freedom movement and accusing a group in abroad which is clearly in the same path.

In autum 2014, members of the hit squad tried to join the ranks of the “Dzhokhar Dudayev International Peacekeeping Battalion” which is in Ukraine against to the Russian occupation and operating in the territory of Ukraine with supervision of the Ukrainian authorities. Head of this battalion Isa Munayev who was killed in February 2015, was in doubt about Aslan Visitovich Khataev, born in 06.01.1979, and Khamzat Sultanovich Yusupov, born in 26.01.1980; so he asked their guns back and prevented them to join their operational movements; as well as reported them to the Ukrainian security services. After this information, these 2 men are under surveillance of the Ukrainian security service SBU; and they figured out that there is an assassination plan on Tarkhan Gaziyev. On March 12, 2015, they found out that a third member of this hit squad, Mansur Balaev, born in 24.02.1979, entered to Turkey and these 2 hitmen will also join him. The Ukrainian authorities immediately informed their counterparts in the ranks of Turkish security service MIT. Turkish police found out that Mansur Balaev entered from the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul and checked in a hotel in the district of Laleli. On March 13, 2015, Istanbul police’s Counter-Terrorism Department organised a raid and arrested the suspect while he was hitting the booze with girls in his hotel room.

Turkish police discovered 2 handguns in 9 mm and another handgun in 7,5 mm together with large number of bullets in Mansur Balaev’s hotel room. During his interrogation, he confessed that his partners are going to arrive in Istanbul. Later on, upon his words, Aslan Khatev and Khamzat Yusupov were arrested at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport and they were deported immediately to the country where they came from. Meantime, a Turkish court decided a jailed pending trial for Mansur Balaev, so currently he is in a Turkish prison.

We urges everybody about 2 other hitmen Aslan Khataev and Khamzat Yusupov, and shares copies of their passports as well as their photos:

Copy of Mansur Balaev’s passport:

Copy of Aslan Khataev’s passport:

Copy of Khamzat Yusupov’s passport:

Photos of Aslan Khataev and Khamzat Yusupov: