Junaid Khan (Basmachi leader)

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Junaid Khan (Turkmen: Jüneýit han; full name: Muhammet Gurban); (b.1857/62–1938) was a Turkmen tribal leader who became the Chief of the Armed Forces and later the de facto and last ruler of the Khanate of Khiva.

Born into the Turkmen tribe of Yomut, Muhammet Gurban was the son of a tribal chieftain Khojibay, after whose death he assumed the leadership of the tribe. Gaining authority during the Turkmen uprisings of 1912-1916, Junaid was granted enormous power within the Khanate by the then Khan of Khiva Isfandiyar, who sought to lessen the growing Turkmen threat. However, after a short period of time Junaid arranged Isfandiyar's assassination and later enthroned the murdered Khan's uncle Sayid Abdullah as a puppet ruler, while himself becoming the real master of the Khanate.

Disillusioned with his ineffective policies that ultimately led to a new revolt, a number of influential leaders of other Turkmen tribes and Uzbek population appealed to the Bolsheviks, who were gaining a foothold in Russian Turkestan after the October Revolution. In 1919, under the pretext of assisting rebels, Bolsheviks invaded the Khanate and soon captured its capital Khiva. Junaid fled to the Karakum Desert with the remnants of his troops from where he organized active resistance to the emerging Soviet government.