Following the fall of Grozny and the Russian push into the highlands, Gelayev personally led the defense of the mountain village of Shatoy, where he was wounded several times. Mumadi Saidayev then took over the command of the front. During this battle, on May 27, 1995, Gelayev announced that if the aerial bombing of the village continued, a number of captive Russian military aviation officers would be killed every day and, according to the Russian human rights group Memorial, eight Russian POWs were executed as Gelayev carried out this threat. The later President of Ichkeria (and still later the self-proclaimed leader of the Caucasus Emirate) Dokka Umarov initially served under his command, together with Akhmed Zakayev, before they left it to form their own units. On April 16, 1996, Gelayev and the Arab commander Ibn al-Khattab wrecked a large column of Russian armored vehicles in the famous Shatoy ambush, killing scores - or possibly hundreds - of federal soldiers, almost all of them within the first 15 minutes of the attack, with minimal losses on their own side. Previously, on March 6, 1996, Gelayev had led a surprise raid on Grozny, seizing large parts of the city for two days and inflicting serious losses on federal forces, before leaving with more than 100 civilian hostages. This was seen as a rehearsal before the recapture of the city in the Battle of Grozny (August 1996), in an operation led by Basayev in which Gelayev also participated, and that ended the war. After the war, Gelayev became a deputy prime minister under the new Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov in April 1997. He went on a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and took the name Hamzat. The following year, in January 1998, he was appointed the defence minister of Chechnya, a largely honorific post which he held until he was replaced by Magomed Khambiyev in July 1999. Gelayev became the first deputy defense minister in charge of security forces, including personal command of the Sharia Guard. Gelayev, however, maintained links with both Maskhadov and his rivals, in particular with Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Salman Raduyev. Second Chechen War At the start of the Second Chechen War in late 1999, Gelayev commanded a force of some 1,500 fighters in the siege of Grozny, charged with defense of the south-western sector of the city. However, he and most of his men left the city without orders in