[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.

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.

[2][3] After he left the command of Zapad, at the end of 2007 he was appointed deputy military commissar of Chechnya for military-patriotic education of youth.