Abu Omar al-Saif

Abu Omar al-Saif (Arabic: أبو عمر السيف‎‎)(1968/69-2005) was an informal name or nom de guerre of a Saudi Islamist and fighter operating first in Afghanistan (1986–1988) and later in the North Caucasus (1996–2005) as the mufti of Arab fighters in Chechnya, allegedly with close ties to al-Qaeda. His full name was Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Saif al-Buainain (محمد بن عبد الله بن سيف البوعينين). He sometimes also used the name, or was addressed as, al-Jaber. He was born in 1968 or 1969 in Saudi Arabia, and was killed in Dagestan in December 2005.

Al-Saif seems to have been the trustee of Arab financiers, receiving money from them through some institution in Dagestan (likely the Makhachkala office of Benevolence International Foundation, a KSA-based Islamic charity, now banned) and distributing it to the Islamic insurgent forces across southern Russia. His predecessor in this role was Ibn al-Khattab, who was also a Saudi and was also killed in Dagestan. It is unclear whether al-Saif took command of Abu al-Walid al-Ghamdi’s forces in Chechnya after the latter's death in 2004. It is possible that, after al-Saif's death, the Jordanian or Saudi known as Abu Hafs al-Urduni took over al-Saif's function, or tried to take it over (al-Urduni was killed 11 months after al-Saif, again in Dagestan). Al-Saif was suspected in Russia in connection with the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk, as well as suspected by them of financing the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis.

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