 Technically still a personal militia, it functioned as an unofficial part of the Chechen Republic's state police without any legal status in either the republican or federal government.In May 2003, the Kadyrovs established effective control over the Chechen OMON, then estimated at 300 men, earlier considered one of the strongholds of the anti-Kadyrov opposition in the power structures led by Musa Gazimagomadov, who died in a road accident under "strange circumstances".The Kadyrovtsy OMON was now run by Ruslan Alkhanov, who had been a rebel commander amnestied just a year before, and later became the Chechnya's Interior Minister.