Leader of Chechen Terrorists Killed by Russian Forces

MOSCOW — The Chechen terrorist who claimed to have masterminded the Beslan school siege was killed in a huge explosion yesterday.Shamil Basayev was apparently preparing to mount a fresh attack to coincide with this weekend’s G–8 summit in St. Petersburg.Russian officials claimed he was killed in a special forces operation after a decade-long manhunt.He became the country’s most wanted terrorist after a string of savage attacks that culminated in the school siege in September 2004.President Putin was jubilant after being told of Basayev’s death. “For the bandits, this is just retribution for our children in Beslan … and for all the terrorist attacks they carried out in Moscow and other regions of Russia,” he said.At least 331 people, more than half of them children, were killed during a botched raid by Russian forces to rescue the hostages. Details of Basayev’s death were unclear and often contradictory, although Mr. Putin immediately ordered medals for all the special forces servicemen involved.Police in Ingushetia, the Russian republic neighboring Chechnya where Basayev died, suggested that a truck packed with explosives might have detonated accidentally.Basayev was in a three-car convoy following the truck and was one of between three and 11 people killed.“There was a powerful explosion,” the Ingush interior minister, Beslan Khamkoyev, said. “Everyone within the radius of the explosion was blown to bits.”Chechen separatists also said Basayev died in an “accidental” explosion of a convoy carrying explosives.State television later reported that special forces had “helped” to blow up the truck.Basayev’s death will provide a huge boost for Mr. Putin ahead of the G-8 summit — the first to be held in Russia — and a potentially fractious meeting with President Bush on Friday.The White House has become increasingly critical of a Kremlin crackdown on democracy in Russia but terrorism is one area where the two leaders can agree.All the more so because Basayev, who was also on America’s list of wanted terrorists, provides many parallels with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed in an American airstrike last month.Like Zarqawi, Basayev focused on orchestrating spectacular attacks aimed at causing massive civilian casualties.Both men, fanatically devoted to radical Islam, also seemed to elude the authorities with ease.In 1995, Basayev led a raid on a hospital in Budyonnovsk, a hospital in a region bordering Chechnya, and took hundreds of doctors and patients hostage.More than 100 people were killed in a bungled raid by security forces but Basayev was allowed to slip back to Chechnya.His bearded face and piercing eyes began to dominate Russian television screens.Yet Russian forces seemed incapable of catching the former computer salesman and university dropout.As the Chechen wars, which erupted in 1994, dragged on, Basayev — who reportedly worked for Russian intelligence when he fought with Moscow-backed separatists in a breakaway region of Georgia in 1991— became more radically Islamic.There remains a split between the Islamic and violent fringe he led and the bulk of Chechen rebels fighting for independence, although the lines have grown more blurred of late and Basayev was named their vice president two weeks ago.Analysts predicted that his death would have little impact on the conflict in Chechnya.“His killing will be regarded by most as positive as he no longer enjoys much authority,” a Chechnya expert with the Moscow Carnegie Center, Alexey Malashenko, said. “Even young people no longer see him as an idol and won’t join his units.”But the good news for the Kremlin is that the most violent wing of the rebellion has lost its leader, and some expect his followers will melt back into the mountains, a much-diminished force.Nonetheless, there are also fears that the death could spark a final hurrah from Basayev’s faction, who will be longing to avenge their leader’s death on Russian soil.

Leader of Chechen Terrorists Killed by Russian Forces

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