Aiza Gazuyeva

Who was Aiza Gazuyeva?

Aiza Gazuyeva was a young Chechen woman who became the first shahidka. In November 2001, Gazuyeva assassinated through suicide attack the Russian General Gaidar Gadzhiyev, commandant of the Urus-Martan military district in Chechnya, the man she believed was directly responsible the death of her husband. This spontaneous attack was unclaimed by the Chechen rebels.

Not much is known for sure about Gazuyeva, a semi-legendary figure in Chechnya, who at the time of her death was either 18 or 20 years old. It is said that she had lost a husband, two brothers, and a cousin in the war before her spontaneous revenge attack. In one traumatic event, her disabled brother was shot dead without reason by the Russian troops near their family home. Gadzhiyev, an ethnic Avar military officer commonly accused by locals of atrocities against civilians, reportedly summoned Gazuyeva to witness the death of her arrested husband, brutally killing him with a knife and then pulling her head into the gaping stomach wound. According to the other version, the general told Gazuyeva that he killed her husband with his own hands during an interrogation.