Russians kill rebel leader

2005-03-09 08:04

Moscow - Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, the symbol of resistance to Moscow's rule in the breakaway Muslim republic, has been killed by Russian forces, Russian officials announced on Tuesday.

The NTV television network broadcast video footage showing the shirtless body of a middle-aged man identified as Maskhadov, who is one of Russia's two most wanted men, lying on the ground amid debris.

It followed what a spokesperson for Russian federal forces in the region said was a battle that occurred earlier in the Chechen village of Tolstoi-Yurt.

"Today in the republic of Chechnya in the village of Tolstoi-Yurt an operation was carried out by special FSB forces during which the international terrorist and leader of armed bands Maskhadov was killed and his closest collaborators arrested," the head of the FSB intelligence service told President Vladimir Putin in remarks broadcast on national television.

Death confirmed

Akhmed Zakayev, a longtime ally and spokesperson of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, confirmed by telephone from Britain that it was "definitely Maskhadov" that had been killed by Russian troops.

"It was an accident. He was in a house, nearly alone," he said. "They wanted to take him prisoner... He had a worthy death, in battle. He died defending the interests of the Chechen people."

Zakayev vowed, however, that the fight would continue: "The resistance will continue, no doubt about it."

Maskhadov, 53, has been blamed by the Russian government for numerous attacks on both military targets and civilians in recent years, including the Beslan school massacre last autumn - which he denied - and an October 2002 mass hostage-taking at the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow.

Together with Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev, Maskhadov was one of Russia's two most wanted men and his death was certain to be characterised by authorities here as a major success in efforts that have so far lasted for a decade to subdue the armed rebellion in Chechnya.

Putin, however, was cautious in his initial public reaction, saying the fight was far from over.

"There is still a good deal of work to be done," he said on television in response to FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, who had informed him of Maskhadov's killing.

Maskhadov, a former Red Army officer, was seen as a moderate until he aligned himself more closely with radical Islamists.

He was elected Chechen president in 1997 in a vote recognised by the Kremlin and described as free and fair by international observers.

He and Basayev however both had a $10m bounty placed on their heads by Russian authorities following the Beslan massacre.

- AFP