The dense woods on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia afforded little protection to Doku Umarovs men when Russian special forces tracked them down. For a full day or more, the Spetsnaz troops lobbed mortars and rockets into the thickets where a militant cell loyal to the countrys most wanted terrorist had tried to hide. Then they moved in for the kill. The bloodshed that followed became the focus of an escalating conflict that culminated in last weeks suicide bombings on the Moscow Metro. According to the Russians, the deaths of 18 terrorists that February day dealt a blow to Umarovs ferocious little army of militants fighting for an Islamic state in the Caucasus. Umarov highlighted another side to the story: a group of teenage boys who had been picking wild garlic nearby had been stabbed, shot at point-blank range and riddled with bullets after being mistaken for his followers. While the Russians conceded that four civilians had been caught in crossfire, Umarov railed against a slaughter of innocents that required him to avenge their loss. It was barely six weeks later that two female suicide bombers took a bus to Moscow, boarded underground trains in the morning rush hour and blew themselves up. One was Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, the 17- year-old widow of an insurgent from Dagestan with whom she had posed for a photograph as both brandished guns. The second bomber was believed to be Markha Ustarkhanova, 20, the widow of a Chechen militant leader. Together they killed 40 people and wounded more than 80. The Russian capital had seen its first big terrorist attack in six years. Shortly afterwards Umarov, 46, wearing camouflage fatigues and with a long beard, warned in a video of worse violence to come. The bombings had been a legitimate act of revenge for the deaths of civilians massacred by the Russian occupiers, he said. They attacked them with knives and made fun of their corpses. He added: The war will come to your streets and you will feel it on your own skins. Until that moment most Russians had never heard of Umarov. They had started to believe the Kremlins claim last summer that the war in Chechnya had been won. As the victims of the Metro bombings were buried, the question many people were asking was whether a terrorist who has eluded Russian forces for nearly two decades will be caught before he can carry out his threat of a fresh attack on a far more grotesque scale. UMAROV was born into an educated family in a small Chechen village and later graduated as a construction engineer and moved to Moscow. He returned to his homeland out of patriotism in 1994 when Chechnya tried to break away from Russia. During a bloody war that lasted two years and claimed tens of thousands of lives, he rose swiftly up the ranks of the rebel movement, earning a reputation as a skilful fighter. The rebel leadership appointed him security minister after Russia withdrew from Chechnya in 1997. His job was to curb the influence of the Islamist groups that had moved in from the Arab world. But Chechnya became one of the most dangerous places on earth, plagued by kidnappings and clan warfare. Umarov was sacked. It was during the second Chechen war that he regained his stature. Following a series of apartment block bombings in Moscow and other cities in 1999, Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, ordered his troops back into Chechnya. Umarov became one of his countrys most forceful field commanders, despite being wounded several times. He is said to have undergone plastic surgery on his jaw and, since stepping on a mine some years ago, now walks with a limp. With Shamil Basayev, Chechnyas militant leader at the time, he launched a daring attack on Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, in 2004. Dozens of security forces were killed. Yet he did not share Basayevs view that ordinary Russians were legitimate targets. He openly criticised his comrade for staging the Beslan school siege that year. Some 330 hostages died, more than half of them children. If we resort to such methods I do not think any of us will be able to retain his human face, Umarov said. Innocent civilians are not our targets. As the war continued Umarov, the father of six children, found his family targeted repeatedly. His brother Ruslan was abducted in 2005 and allegedly tortured by agents of the FSB (the former KGB) in Chechnya. He is thought to have been executed. Two other brothers, Mussa and Issa, were killed in combat. Then Chechen forces loyal to Moscow abducted Umarovs young wife and one-year-old son, along with his father Khamad, 74. The wife and son were released. Umarov claims his father was executed. His sister Natalia was abducted and freed. After that it was the turn of his cousin Zaurbek and nephew Roman, who are still missing, presumed dead. Umarov took charge of the rebel movement in 2006 after Basayev and his successor were killed. One of the few leaders to have survived both wars, he has become increasingly extremist in his views and methods. BY his own admission, he did not even know how to pray at the outbreak of the first Chechen war. But in 2007 he abandoned the ideology of Chechen independence and proclaimed himself leader of the Caucasus emirate, a nominal Islamic state spanning the region. In the process he brought his campaign of violence to neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia, where he now holds sway over local Islamic terrorist cells. Among the attacks attributed to Umarov is an attempt to kill President YunusBek Yevkurov of Ingushetia, whose motorcade was bombed. The Russians have declared Umarov dead at least six times but, to their frustration, he recently claimed that he had walked 80 miles along the Dagestan border without any problems. Last summer he reactivated the Riyadus Salikhin brigade, a suicide unit founded by Basayev and disbanded after his death. The brigade took 800 people hostage in a Moscow theatre in 2002 in a siege that ended with 130 dead. Umarov also announced that he had changed his mind about targeting ordinary people. For me there are no civilians in Russia, he said. Why? Because a genocide of our people is being carried out with their tacit consent. For last weeks attack he adopted Basayevs tactic of using black widow bombers women who have typically lost a husband in the war and have been indoctrinated. Abdurakhmanova, whose poetry recitals are still remembered at her village school, was drawn away from her single mother by Umalat Magomedov, 30, one of Umarovs commanders, after meeting him on the internet. He was shot dead in a car on New Years Eve and she is reported to have carried a love note on her mission to kill at the Park Kultury Metro station. Well meet in heaven, she had written in Arabic, a language used in the Caucasus only by Islamic militants. The other bomber attacked the Lubyanka station near the FSB headquarters. One of her victims was Yulia Shukinoi, the mother of an eight-year-boy, Danil, whose father died in a car crash last year. After the blast he was calling me every hour to ask where mummy is, said the boys grandmother, Nadezda. I could not bring myself to tell him she had been killed. I kept repeating that wed find her. The bombings were embarrassing for Putin, a former KGB officer who has made defeating Islamic terrorism a priority of his leadership, both as president and now as prime minister. Umarovs change of tactics may signal the influence of Arab militants close to Al-Qaeda. Analysts believe he could be seeking extra funding from Arab extremist groups. Support for Umarov has already been expressed by Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a Jordanian described by American intelligence as a jihadi mentor. He was believed to have advised Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the late leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. According to security sources, an FSB hit squad has been sent to assassinate Umarov. The Kremlin fears that he is plotting the kind of mass hostage-taking for which he once condemned Basayev. Asked recently whether he had such plans, Umarov replied: If that is the will of Allah. Shamil Basayev did not have the opportunities I have now ... If Allah allows me, there will be a result.(The Sunday Times)