Wahhabism or no wahhabism, even in 1920 the Chechens fought under the green banner of the prophet (the one that features in those Danish cartoons, you know...).
Their then leader Shamil definitely used all the Islamic rhetoric of martyrdom and the rest of the sh*t.
Sorry for the typo - 1820 that is.
Well, at the time they did not have any other banners. The conflict, through most of its history till its most recent phase, had been 200% local - that's the point, and not the color of the banners. Neither in 1820-60, nor around 1920, nor in 1940s did anyone there dream of the world caliphate - what they wanted was to return to their old tribal ways, without NKVD, CheKa, or Russian vampirial military outposts. BTW, to suppress them even in 19th century it was necessary to resort to ecological warfare - cutting and burning mountain forests, wasting their small agricultural fields etc. Mountain tribes have long memories, and after all that has been done there, this conflict does not have nongenocidal solution, unless the putinoids withdraw and wall off the Chechnya with minefield belts.