http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/international/europe/09chechnya.html?th
Russians Kill Chechen Separatist Leader in His Hide-Out By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: March 9, 2005 OSCOW, March 8 - Russian special forces killed the leader of Chechnya's separatists, Aslan Maskhadov, on Tuesday in a raid that gave the Kremlin a rare victory in a bloody war that has killed tens of thousands and spawned a wave of terrorist attacks across Russia in recent years. Mr. Maskhadov, who from hiding led thousands of fighters after Russia's second invasion of Chechnya in 1999, died in a bunker beneath a house in an outwardly peaceful village, Tolstoy-Yurt, only 12 miles from the region's capital, Grozny, according to officials and news accounts. His death is akin to the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, depriving insurgents of their political and symbolic leader, though with still uncertain effects on those determined to resist Russian forces in Chechnya, including with acts of terror. Although Mr. Maskhadov, who was 53, nominally commanded Chechnya's fighters, he appeared to have lost influence over Russia's most wanted man, Shamil Basayev, the rebel commander who has claimed responsibility for the worst terrorist attacks, including the siege of a theater in Moscow in 2002 that killed 129 and a school in Beslan last September that killed at least 339, half of them schoolchildren. President Vladimir V. Putin appeared on television with the director of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai P. Patrushev, who told him that his forces had killed Mr. Maskhadov and arrested four associates. In brief, unemotional remarks, Mr. Putin simply asked Mr. Patrushev to confirm the identification of Mr. Maskhadov's body and to submit a list of those involved in the raid for medals. "There is still a lot of work to do there," the president said, referring to Chechnya. "We have to build up our forces to protect the people of the republic and citizens of all Russia from the bandits." Mr. Maskhadov's imminent capture or death has been reported before, but officials showed little doubt that it was Mr. Maskhadov who had died in the raid. NTV showed graphic images of a body that resembled him. The body lay in a pool of blood, bare-chested, arms outstretched. There was what appeared to be a bullet hole beneath his left eye. One of Mr. Maskhadov's most prominent aides, Akhmed Zakayev, said sources inside Chechnya had confirmed his death. "It is just one more political assassination," Mr. Zakayev said in a telephone interview from London, where he has received political asylum. He cited the deaths of Chechnya's first post-Soviet president, Dzhokhar Dudayev, who was killed by Russian forces during the first war in 1996, and his successor, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who died in a car bombing in February 2004 while in exile in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar. A court there convicted two Russian secret agents and sentenced them to life in prison, though the men were later released to the Russian authorities. "The ordinary people of Chechnya are being killed every day because they disagree with the federal authorities," Mr. Zakayev said, "as are the people they have elected." Mr. Zakayev said the separatist movement's leaders - now in exile or in hiding - would follow the region's former constitution and elect an interim leader, as they did after Mr. Dudayev's death. Dmitri V. Trenin, deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Mr. Maskhadov's death might not change events on the ground significantly, given that his leadership had become increasingly symbolic and that Mr. Basayev remained at large. But he called it a "political victory and a moral victory" for the Kremlin. "I think it's significant for Mr. Putin, first of all," Mr. Trenin said. "He can produce evidence that the antiterrorist operation in Chechnya is yielding results. He needed that, especially after Beslan." The Russians considered Mr. Maskhadov a terrorist, not a rebel leader, and accused him of masterminding many of the attacks that have struck from the Caucasus in southern Russia to the heart of Moscow itself in recent years, killing hundreds of civilians in a theater, at a rock concert, on the subway and aboard trains and passenger airliners. After the siege of Middle School No. 1 in Beslan, a small city in North Ossetia, the authorities offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to his arrest or Mr. Basayev's. It was not immediately clear whether the reward would be paid now that he had been found and killed. Mr. Maskhadov denied involvement in the worst of the attacks in messages he communicated through his envoys in Europe and the United States or through the Internet. He denounced the siege in Beslan and vowed in statements to prosecute Mr. Basayev. Earlier this year he was reported to have offered a month-long cease-fire, which ended on Feb. 23. Attacks in Chechnya did seem to slow, but Russian officials denounced the gesture as a stunt, refusing as before to hold any negotiations with him or other separatist leaders. Officials provided few details on the raid, which was not surprising since it involved officers of the F.S.B., the successor to the K.G.B., who even afterward were shown on television still wearing black masks. Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, who announced the death, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Maskhadov had been hiding in a bunker beneath a house in Tolstoy-Yurt, while his four associates were outside. The general suggested that the agents had intended to arrest Mr. Maskhadov but that he had resisted. "He was hiding in the bunker," he said. "So the bunker had to be blown up. Apparently he was shellshocked but tried to shoot back." He said no Russian forces had been hurt. Mr. Maskhadov was born on Sept. 21, 1951, in Kazakhstan, where Stalin had ordered the deportation of most of the Chechen population during World War II, an act that carries heavy symbolism among all Chechens to this day. He served most of his life in the Soviet Army, rising to the rank of colonel and serving in Communist Hungary, and later in Lithuania as the Soviet Union began to fall apart. After Chechnya, a small, mountainous Muslim region on Russia's southern border, declared its independence in 1991, he resigned his commission and became commander of the armed forces of a country that was unrecognized. He remained military leader during the first Chechen war, from 1994 to 1996, when he commanded a daring assault to retake Grozny from Russian troops. President Boris N. Yeltsin then negotiated an end to the war, leaving Chechnya with de facto independence. In January 1997, Mr. Maskhadov was elected president, defeating the man whose name is still linked to his, Mr. Basayev. By 1999, with the region roiled by lawlessness, Mr. Basayev mounted an attack on neighboring Dagestan, and Russian forces poured in again, driving the rebellious leaders from Grozny and eventually from most of Chechnya. It is a measure of how deeply troubled and chaotic the region is that despite the presence of tens of thousands of Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces, Mr. Maskhadov was able to hide - for how long is not clear - in a village in the center of Chechnya itself. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give underprivileged students the materials they need to learn. Bring education to life by funding a specific classroom project. http://us.click.yahoo.com/FHLuJD/_WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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