Career
He was appointed to this position (vacant since the death of Shamil Basayev) on 19 March 2007, by the President of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dokka Umarov. He was considered the most senior figure after Umarov in the ranks of the Caucasian Emirate and a possible successor. Abdullayev was commander of the Jundullah Brigade, linked to the Vedeno-based wing of the Chechen resistance movement which was close to Basayev.
He was primarily a religious figure rather than a military man, alike Abdul-Halim Sadulayev.
Abdullayev was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Both of the men left the ministry following the gun battle in Gudermes between the Salafis and the supporters of then-president Aslan Maskhadov on 15 July 1998. In the aftermath, Abdullayev grew distant from politics and became known as a "second stringer."
Even though he was a jamaat member, he remained loyal to Aslan Maskhadov until the death of the latter.
Supyan Abdullayev developed into one of the most senior ranking field commanders of the Caucasus Emirate, and the chief ideologue of the whole movement. He was named as Dokka Umarov"s deputy emir.
On 28 March 2011, Abdullayev was killed in a Russian airstrike on a rebel camp in Ingushetia.
In this raid, the Emirate"s overall leader was thought to have been killed, but it later surfaced, that he survived the airstrikes upon the rebel camp.