The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria was a breakaway republic of Russia that existed from the collapse of the Soviet Union on 1 November 1991 until the Russian capture of Grozny on 26 August 2000 during the Second Chechen War. In 2002, Chechnya had a population of 1,103,686 people, with almost all of them being Sunni Muslim Chechens and a minority being Orthodox Christian Russians and Georgians or Muslim Lezgins, Avars, and Dargins, among other groups.
The ChRI was founded by Dzokhar Dudayev in 1991 after seceding from the USSR and Russia, and it won its independence in the 1994-1996 First Chechen War, although Dudayev was killed and Grozny was ruined. Aslan Maskhadov became the leader of Chechnya in 1997, and he decided to implement sharia law in the country to appease Islamist opposition members, uniting the country against Russia. However, this led to al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists supporting the Chechen government, giving it the visage of a terrorist regime. In 1999, Russia invaded Chechnya in response to clashes in Dagestan between the Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade and the Russian Army, as well as a string of bombings carried out by the FSB, who framed Chechens for the attacks. In 2000, Grozny was captured by the Russian Army, and a pro-Moscow regime was installed at the head of the new Chechen Republic. The ChRI ceased to exist as a country, and guerrilla warfare by its supporters would continue until 2007, when the Caucasus Emirate jihadist group replaced the government-in-exile.
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