[1][2] He had been engaged in power struggles for overall military authority with the president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov and the commander of the Special Battalion Vostok ("East") Sulim Yamadayev.

In 2007, having left the post of battalion commander, he was appointed deputy military commissar of Chechnya for military-patriotic education of youth.

Said-Magomed Kakiyev was born on 22 February 1970 in the village of Ken-Yurt, Nadterechny District, Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

After he finished a Grozny vocational school in 1989 he went to serve in the Soviet Army from 1989 to 1991 in a reconnaissance battalion of the Transcaucasian Military District.

Dzhokhar Dudayev had started a rebellion against Soviet, later Russian rule, but the northern part of Chechnya where Kakiyev hailed from was not so enthusiastic about the secession.

In 1992, he organized a militia unit on the territory of the Nadterechny District, then headed by Umar Avturkhanov [ru], leader of the anti-Dudayev coalition.

At the end of 1996, Aslan Maskhadov declared Kakiyev an outlaw and put a price on his head: whoever killed him would receive the title of Hero of Ichkeria.

[2] On 14 October 2002, by a presidential decree, Kakiev was awarded the title of Hero of Russia "for courage and heroism shown in the performance of military duty in the North Caucasus region."

[2] After the active phase of the war, Kakiyev was the leader of the GRU Spetsnaz Special Battalion Zapad ("West"), reorganized from his special-purpose company, from November 2003 to 2007.