Front in September 2006). He was appointed to the position by then-president of the ChRI Abdul-Halim Sadulayev at the request of Basayev, who was then Military Emir of the Caucasus Front. Gakayev also simultaneously served as minister of internal affairs of ChRI from March to October 2007. From May 2007 to June 2010, Gakayev was deputy commander of the Southeastern Front and in October 2007 he was named to the same position on the Eastern Front of the newly formed Caucasus Emirate. Gakayev was in charge of the Shali Mountain, Shali Plains, Argun and Ataginsky sectors, and from June 2010 to September 2010 he was the wali (head) of Vilayat Nokhchicho. The Vedeno and Shalinsky mountain and foothill areas of the republic, specifically Elistanzhi, Agishty, Eshilhatoy and Agishbatoy are the area of operations for his guerrilla unit. Family Gakayev was one of six brothers, two of which, the older Jamalay and Said-Usman, were killed in fighting during the First Chechen War. His two other brothers died in combat in the Second Chechen War: Hasan in 2001 and Rizvan in 2003, both in the area of Vedeno. Khuseyn's sole surviving brother, Muslim Gakayev (also known as "Amir Muslim" or "Dunga") served as commander of the Shali sector of the Eastern Front, and in 2009 commanded a unit of suicide bombers, until his death alongside Khuseyn. In the course of the second war, his sister was abducted and remains missing since 2006, along with thousands of other Chechens who "disappeared" since 1999. Politics From 7 March to 7 October 2007, Gakayev served as the Minister of Internal Affairs in the last cabinet of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the chairmanship of Dokka Umarov. He later occupied the same post in Umarov's Interior Ministry of the Vilayat Nokhchicho (Chechnya) of the Caucasus Emirate. On 25 July 2010, he has been briefly appointed by Umarov as Wali (governor) of the Vilayat Nokhchicho (in practice, the post of commander of the Chechen rebel forces). After the rift in leadership, he was the first deputy to the new Emirate leader Aslambek Vadalov. Emir of Chechnya Following Umarov's retraction of his resignation, Gakayev, Vadalov and Tarkhan Gaziev, as well as the Arab commander Muhannad, renounced their oath of loyalty to Umarov, criticising his authoritarian leadership and his unilateral decision to abandon the cause of Chechen independence in favour of a Caucasian pan-Islamism (Umarov later also said