MOSCOW, July 10: Chechen guerilla leader Shamil Basayev, Russia’s most wanted man, was killed on Monday, handing a huge boost to President Vladimir Putin as he prepared to host a Group of Eight summit.
FSB security agency chief Nikolai Patrushev said Basayev, who had claimed responsibility for the bloody Beslan school siege in 2004, had been about to mount an attack in southern Russia to mar the weekend G8 summit Mr Putin will chair in St Petersburg.
A Chechen Web site confirmed Basayev was dead, calling him a ‘shakhid’, or martyr. But it said the guerrilla leader had died in an accident, and not in a specialoperation by Russian forces.
“The Chechen commander died when a truck loaded with explosives accidentally blew up,” the www.kavkazcenter.com site quoted a spokesman as saying.
“As for special operations, the mujahideen will show how they ought to be conducted,” the spokesman added.
Mr Putin, whose already huge popularity at home will be further boosted by the news as he prepares to meet US President George W. Bush and other world leaders, said Basayev’s death was “deserved retribution” for a campaign of killing.
More than 331 people, half of them children, were killed in the Beslan school siege in September 2004. Russian forces stormed the school, which had been seized by Islamist militants linked to Chechnya’s fight for independence.
“This is deserved retribution against the bandits for our children in Beslan ... for all these acts of terror they committed in Moscow and other Russian regions,” Putin said in televised comments.
Mr Patrushev said Basayev, with other Chechen fighters, was killed in an operation by special forces in Ingushetia, a region neighbouring Chechnya.
“They intended to use this terrorist act to put pressure on Russia’s leadership at a time when the G8 summit was being held,” said Patrushev.
Officials said Basayev was killed when his group’s explosive-laden truck blew up. They said they found fragments of Basayev’s prosthetic leg and his head, with its distinctive beard.
A Web site confirmed Basayev was dead, calling him a ‘shakhid’, or martyr. But it said there had been no special operation by Russian forces.
“The Chechen commander died when a truck loaded with explosives accidentally blew up,” the www.kavkazcenter.com site quoted a rebel spokesman as saying.
“As for special operations, the mujahideen will show how they ought to be conducted,” the spokesman added.
TRUCK EXPLOSION: Russian state TV said residents in the village of Ekazhevo heard the blast as they watched the climax of the soccer World Cup final round early Monday Moscow time. Basayev was sitting in a car near the truck when it blew up.
“There was an enormous explosion. All those who were in a radius of the blast were blown to pieces,” Beslan Khamkhoyev of Ingushetia’s interior ministry was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency. He said ten rebels were killed in all.
Officials gave no details on how Russian special forces had triggered the explosion.
Basayev’s killing was a personal vindication for Putin. He came to power six years ago promising Chechen rebels would be “wiped out in the outhouse”.
But while Putin accumulated power in the Kremlin, Basayev continued to defy him. From his forest hideouts, he issued video and Internet messages taunting the Russian leader.—AFP
MOSCOW, July 10: Chechen guerilla leader Shamil Basayev, Russia’s most wanted man, was killed on Monday, handing a huge boost to President Vladimir Putin as he prepared to host a Group of Eight summit.
