 Upon their return to Kabardino-Balkaria, Atayev and his men launched a recruitment drive among alienated and radicalized youth.Mounting pressure from a continued crackdown led the group's leader, Mussa Mukozhoyev (Musa Mukozhev), to join the underground.Many local young radicals had joined the Islamic Peacekeeping Army that invaded the republic of Dagestan from Chechnya in 1999 or fought on the Chechen separatist side in the Second Chechen War.