 It is most notorious for its role in the October 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, when the group took some 800 hostages in the Russian capital; by then, SPIR was headed by Movsar Barayev—the nephew of Arbi (killed in 2001)—and probably never had more than 100 fighters at any given time.It might have received some external assistance from foreign fighters.During the Moscow theatre hostage crisis, Movsar Barayev and some 40 men and women led by him (dubbed the 29th Suicide Division) that also included members of two other Chechen rebel groups, brought together by Shamil Basayev, were killed in a raid by Russian special forces units Alfa and Vympel after having been incapacitated by the chemical attack that also killed at least 129 of their hostages.