Russians claim killing of rebel Basayev, the Beslan
butcher
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 11 July 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article1171377.ece

After 11 years on the run, numerous reports of his
demise, multiple attempts on his life, and a $10m
bounty on his head, Chechnya's most feared and
blood-soaked rebel commander, Shamil Basayev, has
finally been killed.

According to Russia's FSB security service, Basayev,
41, was killed in a special forces operation in
southern Russia in the early hours of Monday as he
organised a terrorist attack to coincide with this
weekend's G8 summit in St Petersburg. The FSB said
that he was killed when a consignment of explosives
was deliberately detonated yards from where he was
sitting in a parked car in a rural part of Ingushetia,
a Russian republic bordering Chechnya.

The rebels allege that Basayev and three other
fighters were killed by an "accidental spontaneous"
explosion of the consignment.

Known as the Butcher of Beslan after he masterminded
the bloody school siege in 2004, Basayev was Russia's
most wanted man. His death is a public relations
victory for President Vladimir Putin, and a powerful
blow to the Chechen separatist movement.

The one-legged Islamic radical was involved with every
major terrorist atrocity in Russia in the past decade,
and viewed Russian civilians as legitimate targets in
his jihad on a Kremlin he accused of crushing his
homeland.

State television broadcast footage of Nikolai
Patrushev, head of the FSB, reporting Basayev's death
to a solemn-looking President Putin in the Kremlin.
"They intended to use this terrorist act to put
pressure on Russia's leadership at a time when the G8
summit was being held," Mr Patrushev said.

Mr Putin, who launched the second Chechen war in 1999,
said the rebel's death was "retribution" for the death
he had wrought in his lifetime. "This is well deserved
payback to the bandits for our children in Beslan, for
Budennovsk, for all the terrorist acts they
perpetrated in Moscow, and other regions of Russia
including Ingushetia and Chechnya," he said.

In the Beslan school siege 331 people died, more than
half of them children, in three days of violence.

Mr Putin congratulated the special forces responsible
for Basayev's "elimination", ordering that they
receive medals, but conceded that Moscow would
continue to face resistance in Chechnya, a part of
Russia riven by separatist conflict on and off since
1994.

"We know well that the terrorist threat is still very
great and under no circumstances can we relax our
operational work," he said.

State television broadcast graphic images of what
remained of several rebel fighters killed with
Basayev, their bodies bloodied and their clothes
shredded. The body of Basayev was not displayed,
apparently because there was not much left of it.
Officials said he had been decapitated by the blast
but could be identified by his prosthetic leg, his
thick beard, and his severed head.

The FSB said that the operation was planned over six
months and that Basayev was located due to
surveillance of foreign countries that were supplying
the separatists with arms.

His words prompted the Russian media to speculate that
the FSB had concealed a bomb in the explosives-laden
truck that blew up.

Basayev came to prominence in 1991 when he and a group
of accomplices hijacked a Russian airliner to Turkey
to highlight Chechnya's plight.He fought against the
Russians in the first, 1994-96 Chechen war, and was
briefly prime minister of an independent Chechnya in
1997.

Initially, he styled himself as a nationalist admirer
of the South American revolutionary Che Guevara, but
he grew increasingly religious in later years, calling
himself "a slave of Allah" and wearing a green
headband with Islamic verse.

He lost the lower part of a leg in 2000 after stepping
on a Russian landmine, an incident that almost killed
him. In 1995 he seized 1,700 people at a hospital in
Budennovsk in southern Russia; around 100 people died.

He later assumed responsibility for the 2002 seizure
of a Moscow theatre in which 129 hostages died, and
for the 2004 double suicide bombing of two airliners,
in which 89 people were killed.

The rebels' website said last night: "There was no
special operation. Shamil ... has become a martyr. As
for special operations, our Mujahideen will show how
they should be carried out."

Fifteen years of carnage

* Basayev's first major terror attack was an airliner
hijacking in 1991 which aimed to raise awareness of
the state of emergency declared in Chechnya. He
returned to Chechnya a free man.

* Basayev turned to increasingly violent tactics
during the first Chechen war, taking more than 1,600
doctors and patients hostage in the town of
Budyonnovsk. He escaped after more than 100 were
killed in a bungled rescue mission.

* Chechen fighters struck at the heart of Russia in
October 2002, taking more than 800 people hostage in a
Moscow theatre. A rescue attempt resulted in the
deaths of 129 hostages after Russian forces pumped
narcotic gas into the theatre.

* Basayev admitted responsibility for co-ordinating
twin suicide bomb attacks on airliners on the same
day, killing 89 people in September 2004. Two weeks
later 300 people, mainly children, were killed when
Chechen fighters took 1,200 pupils and teachers
hostage from School Number One in Beslan. Basayev said
he financed the operation with just €8,000 (£5,500).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Basayev
Chechen 'terrorist No 1'
Published: 11 July 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article1171400.ece

Shamil Salmanovich Basayev, guerrilla leader: born
Vedeno, Soviet Union 14 January 1965; married; died
Ekazhevo, Ingushetia 10 July 2006.

Charismatic, publicity- hungry and scarily violent,
Shamil Basayev embodied all the attributes his fellow
Chechen rebels admired. Steeped in a history of
Chechen bravery in the face of centuries of Russian
brutality, he combined the dedication of a fighter
with cunning and imagination, and struck fear into
every Russian with his ruthless attacks.

From his first terrorist venture - hijacking a Russian
plane to Turkey in 1991 - to his most notorious act -
seizing the hospital and its civilian occupants in the
sleepy southern Russian town of Budennovsk in 1995 -
he used panache and style not only to conduct his
attacks but to promote his cause. Doubt remains as to
whether he personally organised the seizures of the
Nord-Ost theatre in Moscow in 2002 or the school in
Beslan in North Ossetia in 2004, though he did little
to disavow such suggestions. The Russian authorities
came to regard him as terrorist No 1.

Yet, as the Russian authorities skilfully turned the
fight for Chechen independence into an inter-Chechen
fight, Basayev and others on the terrorist wing of the
Chechen resistance began to lose their glamour among a
weary population decimated by a decade of war.

The elder of two brothers, Basayev was born in the
hamlet of Dyshne-Vedeno, in the home rebuilt only a
decade earlier, after survivors returned from exile in
Siberia, on the site where the family had lived for at
least nine centuries. Even in the highlands of
southern Chechnya, where nationalism remained strong,
Communist ideas were inculcated. Basayev grew up as a
self-confessed Soviet child, despite being named after
Imam Shamil, who had bravely fought off the forces of
the Russian Empire before being captured.

Basayev's encounter with the wider Soviet world came
in 1982 when, after completing his education in the
village school, he was called up into the Soviet army.
Racism saw him being sent to a fire-fighting unit. He
then worked on a collective farm in Volgograd region.

In 1986 he moved to Moscow, hoping to enrol in Moscow
University's law faculty, an unlikely prospect for a
not too well educated village lad, let alone a
Chechen. Shocked to learn that a $5,000 bribe was
needed to get in, he enrolled in the Land Institute
and took odd jobs as a ticket inspector and working on
building sites while living among Africans and Cubans
in a Moscow hostel. Thanks to family connections, he
took to selling foreign computers as the economy
opened up to private trade under Mikhail Gorbachev.

It was in Moscow that he first came into contact with
ideologists of Chechen and North Caucasian
independence (Che Guevara was already his hero).
Having rushed to the White House in Moscow to defend
the Russian president Boris Yeltsin during the pro-
Soviet 1991 coup attempt, he abandoned the barricades
on learning of Dzhokhar Dudayev's return to Chechnya
to lead a newly declared republic.

In November 1991, his terrorist career was born with
the hijacking to Turkey. The following year he was
leading a group of Chechen fighters across the
Caucasus mountains in Abkhazia, fighting off Georgian
forces in their bitter but successful struggle for
independence. Ironically - and to the subsequent
regret of the Russians - he was trained in
commando-style warfare by Russia's Main Intelligence
Directorate (GRU) specialists. On the back of his
success and brutality, Basayev became Abkhazia's
deputy defence minister.

On his return to Chechnya in 1993, he was a key rebel
commander as war with Russia began. Basayev's attack
on Budennovsk - helped by wads of US dollars - raised
rebel spirits. His fearless negotiations with senior
Russian officials led to widespread admiration. The
raid was launched just days after Basayev lost 17
relatives - including his wife and children - in a
Russian air strike on his home in Dyshne-Vedeno.

By the time Russian forces had been forced out of
Chechnya and a relatively free presidential poll could
be held in December 1996, Basayev picked up 23 per
cent of the vote, second only to Aslan Maskhadov. The
following month he was appointed prime minister, but
resigned after an ineffectual six months in office.

When Vladimir Putin launched a new war to retake
Chechnya, Basayev was able to return to what he knew
best: fighting and killing. It was almost a relief to
him. He lost a foot in the Chechen retreat from Grozny
in 2000 (he was shown on video unflinching as a
surgeon amputated what was left of it).

Hardly a profound thinker or a strategic politician,
Basayev had a rock-solid image of himself as a heroic
defender of the Chechen nation whose bravery would be
retold throughout history. Even Islam was subjugated
to this ideal. Like many Chechens, he had a contempt
for and fearlessness towards death. He always expected
to die young as a martyr.

Felix Corley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beslan massacre mastermind dies in blast as Russia
says he was plotting new attack

· Anti-terror triumph for Putin on eve of G8 summit
· 12 others die with 'enemy No 1' in vehicle
explosions

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Tuesday July 11, 2006
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,,1817654,00.html

Russia's security service announced the death of
Shamil Basayev yesterday, the country's "terrorist No
1" and the man who was the self-confessed mastermind
of the Beslan massacre.

In a victory for President Vladimir Putin ahead of his
chairing a G8 summit this weekend in St Petersburg,
Russian television showed pictures of burnt-out cars
and a truck in the southern republic of Ingushetia,
which neighbours Basayev's native Chechnya. He and 12
other militants were killed in a blast that destroyed
the vehicles, apparently caused by an assault early
yesterday morning by the security services. His body
was reportedly disfigured in the blast but was
identified by some of its parts.

The 41-year-old, who lost a foot during the second
Chechen war in 2000, frequently appeared in internet
broadcasts and statements to haunt the Kremlin. His
repeated evasion of the security services in the north
Caucasus became embarrassing to Moscow and an
indication of how weak its control over that region
was.
Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Russian security
service, the FSB, told Mr Putin in televised comments
that Basayev had been killed during an overnight
operation in Ingushetia. The Kremlin put a £6m bounty
on his head after Beslan, which ended with the deaths
of 331 people in a series of blasts and a bungled
siege by the Russian military.

Mr Putin said the death was payback for a decade of
attacks on civilians, beginning with another hostage
crisis in Budyonnovsk in 1995. "This is retaliation he
deserves for killing our children in Beslan,
Budyonnovsk, all the terrorist acts his bandits
perpetrated in Moscow and other regions of Russia". He
said the FSB agents involved in the attack should
receive awards.

Mr Patrushev said the militants had "plotted a
terrorist attack in Ingushetia in an attempt to put
pressure on the leadership of Russia during the period
when the G8 summit is due to take place." He declined
to give further details about the attack, but said:
"The creation of an operational network, particularly
in countries where weapons were collected and sent to
militants in Russia" had aided the FSB in tracking
Basayev down.

An FSB spokesman, Nikolai Zakharov, told the Guardian:
"Basayev was killed with 12 other militants. It was a
special operation by our guys. It happened early on
Monday morning in the village of Ekazhevo in the
region of Nazran [the Ingush capital]".

Mr Zakharov said two other militants had been
identified as Tarkhan Ganzhiev and Issa Khushtov, who
were members of an armed group that attacked
Ingushetia, killing at least 100 police and officials
in June 2004. A third militant was identified as Ali
Taziev, a high-profile fighter known as Magas who
masterminded the June attack. Mr Zakharov declined to
go into detail about what the militants were planning,
but added: "They were preparing a terror attack for
the eve of the G8."

Basayev's death came in advance of the international
summit of world leaders, which Russia's critics have
said the country is unfit to host. Dmitri Peskov, a
Kremlin spokesman, told the Guardian: "It is a great
success for the Russian special services, as they
succeeded in killing a terrorist whose hands bore the
blood of many people, including children." He said the
timing was not connected to the G8.

"It's a difficult task, and the Russian special
services don't orientate such work around such
events," he said. There were conflicting reports last
night as to whether Basayev had been in the truck
laden with up to 100kg of explosives that blew up, or
in a car travelling alongside it. Russian sappers
defused 40 undetonated rocket shells at the site of
the blast.

But Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen separatist envoy who
lives in London, where he has political asylum,
suggested that the death may have been an accident. "I
do not believe there was some operation carried out by
Patrushev and his colleagues. I think this was a fatal
accident," he told Reuters. The website kavkaz.org.uk,
linked to separatists, quoted a separatist military
source as saying: "There was no special operation.
Shamil and other of our brothers became martyrs." They
claimed the truck had blown up accidentally.

Russia's state-run First Channel said it may have been
hit by missile strike.

Ingushetia's deputy prime minister, Bashir Aushev,
said: "As far as I know, [Basayev] was identified by
the head. All his characteristic features are there."

The pro-Russian president of Chechnya, Alu Alkhanov,
said the death marked "the logical end of the tough
struggle against illegal paramilitary formations".

But analysts say a power struggle being waged inside
Chechnya is not between Moscow's forces and extremists
but between Chechen militants hired by Moscow to keep
a tight grip on the republic.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Explainer: Shamil Basayev

Militant who went too far

Nick Paton Walsh
Tuesday July 11, 2006
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/chechnya/Story/0,,1817638,00.html

He represented the inhuman face of the Chechen
separatist conflict, the gunman prepared to bargain
with and ultimately sacrifice the lives of hospital
patients, commuters, theatregoers and schoolchildren.
His ruthlessness shocked even hardened Chechen
militants. One former militant said: "He's like a
whipped dog. Sooner or later he will bite."

But now the Chechen separatist conflict, just over 10
years old, has lost its Osama bin Laden. Since the
Kremlin put a $10m (£5.4m) bounty on his head after he
masterminded the death of 331 people in the town of
Beslan in September 2004, he has been outside a
movement that was itself increasingly isolated.

For most separatists, Beslan was the final straw, a
conclusive sign that their movement had lost its way
and betrayed even the most radicalised beliefs of
militant Islam. Even Basayev himself appeared a little
shaken by the impact of the Beslan tragedy, calling
for a UN investigation into the bungled siege by
Russian special forces, as if trying to shift the
blame.
Yet the truth was that each mission he engaged on
brought his end closer. In January 2000 Basayev and
his militants mounted a last stand in Grozny as it was
besieged for a second time by Russian forces. He had
to lead his band out through a minefield, and had his
leg blown off.

With the Russians back in Grozny, the "Chechenisation"
of the conflict had begun to take effect: the slow but
steady buying up of Chechen fighters, including former
separatists, to serve the Kremlin's strategy of divide
and rule.

Thousands of militants have joined the ranks of the
private pro-Russian army that became known as the
Kadyrovtsi, after Akmad Kadyrov, the first president
of Russian-ruled Chechnya. They took with them local
knowledge of the hills and villages where Basayev was
at home.

Yet after Kadyrov was assassinated in May 2004 -
another attack Basayev claimed credit for - his
brutish son Ramzan rose to prominence.

Ramzan pledged to exact his revenge on Basayev and
yesterday expressed his regret that he had not
personally killed his father's murderer. As his stock
rose (he recently became the republic's pro-Russian
prime minister) Basayev's fell.

Ramzan's profile as Moscow's hardman in a land of
warring militias has strengthened along with the
number of his high-profile separatist targets. The
Kadyrovtsi were all well-connected former separatists,
able to provide superb intelligence on the whereabouts
of their former allies and contemporary foes.

First to fall was the Chechen separatist leader Aslan
Maskhadov, a moderate in comparison to Basayev, who
was killed by Russian special forces in March last
year. He was succeeded by Abdul Saidullyaev, whose
brief reign was cut short last month by another
Russian raid.

But when Saidullayev died, it was not Basayev who took
up the separatist throne, but the veteran militant
Doka Umarov. Even before Basayev was killed, his
14-year reign of terror was coming to an end.

Reign of terror

1992 Basayev begins fighting for the separatist
movement of Abkhazia, a breakaway republic of Georgia
near his native Chechnya

June 14 1995 He leads a band of Chechen militants and
seizes hostages at a Russian hospital in Budyonnovsk,
90 miles north of Chechnya; 100 die when troops storm
the hospital three days later

October 23 2002 Militants claiming a link to Basayev
take more than 800 hostages at a Moscow theatre; 129
hostages and 41 militants die as special forces storm
the building

August 24 2004 Ninety people die as two airliners are
blown up by suicide bombers after taking off from a
Moscow airport

September 1 2004 Gunmen seize a school in Beslan.
Mines laid around the hostages by the militants
detonate, killing 331 people

October 13 2005 Police suppress a raid by militants in
the town of Nalchik, west of Chechnya, killing 139
people, including 94 militants. Reports suggest
Basayev led one group of militants
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More on Chechnya at:
http://www.islamawareness.net/Persecution/Chechnya/