[2] After several years of inactivity, Riyad-us Saliheen was reactivated by the Caucasus Emirate in 2009[3] under the command of Said Buryatsky;[4] following his death, Aslan Byutukayev became its new leader.

[5] This highly autonomous,[6] small (probably only 20 to 50 members at any given time) group was first founded and led by Shamil Basayev under the name of Riyadus Salihiin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs (later also known as Islamic Brigade of Shaheeds) in October 1999 as a "special battalion to carry out acts of sabotage" in retaliation for the Grozny missile attack.

[8] Since then the now much more ethnically-diversified group took responsibility for a series of suicide and other attacks in the Russian republics in North Caucasus and elsewhere, including the 2009 car bombing which killed at least 25 at police headquarters in Nazran, Ingushetia, a car bomb assassination attempt at the Ingush president Yunus-Bek Yevkurov,[9] and the killing of scores of policemen in numerous smaller suicide attacks in Chechnya and Ingushetia, and since the beginning of 2010 eventually also in Dagestan.

[13] The most recent operation claimed by the Brigade was the assassination of the convicted Russian war criminal Yuri Budanov in Moscow on 10 June 2011.

[14] However, this was refuted by the rebel website Kavkaz Center the very next day,[13] triggering confusion over the original claim.