GROZNY, Russia (AP) — The spectacular killing of Russia’s most wanted man, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, ends a years-long hunt for the fugitive who hid out in the mountainous territory in and around war-torn Chechnya.
But questions lingered Tuesday about the operation that Russian officials say led to Basayev’s death when a dynamite-filled truck exploded close to his car in a village in neighboring Ingushetia; by some accounts the blast was accidental.
Russia’s defense minister hailed the death of “our bin Laden” as a “landmark event.” Still, Sergei Ivanov warned that the 12-year struggle with Chechen separatist rebels — which has spread across the impoverished and mainly Muslim North Caucasus in Russia’s south — was not over yet.
“The killing of that terrorist doesn’t mean that the fight against militants is over,” Ivanov said, speaking on a trip to the conflict-scarred Chechen regional capital, Grozny. “There is still work to do, and it’s being done.”
Russian newspapers reported Tuesday that Basayev’s elimination resulted from a carefully planned secret service operation that used a shipment of weapons and explosives to ensnare Basayev overnight Sunday to Monday a couple of kilometers (miles) outside the main Ingush city of Nazran.
Unnamed security officials quoted by the Vremya Novostei daily said the preparations took six months. Intelligence agents planted in his entourage led him to a trap in which Russian special services detonated the explosives at the moment when he got near the truck, the officials said.
The Komosmolskaya Pravda daily reported that the undercover agent who was traveling in Basayev’s convoy and planted a detonator under the truck received a payment of up to US$500,000.
But contradicting that version of events was talk of a missile strike. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing an unidentified law enforcement official in southern Russia, reported Tuesday that Basayev had been killed by a rocket that homed in on his phone — the method used to kill Chechen separatist President Dzhokhar Dudayev in 1996.
Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev denied that Basayev’s killing occurred during a special operation, and insisted the explosion was an accident. He said that local policemen began to suspect Basayev might be among the dead when they found the fragments of an artificial leg. Basayev, 41, lost a leg while fleeing Russian forces through a minefield on the outskirts of Grozny in 1999.
“According to information I received from Chechnya, it is absolutely certain that the explosion happened accidentally. There was no special operation as they claim,” Zakayev told The Associated Press by telephone from London.
Nazir Yevloyev, a spokesman for regional police in Ingushetia, told the AP that remains of 10 charred bodies, 10,000 Kalashnikov rounds and several RPG grenades were collected from the explosion site. He said that both Interior Ministry and FSB forces had taken part in the operation. Local police officials in Ingushetia who inspected the explosion site told the AP that all the signs suggested it was an accidental explosion of dynamite in the truck, not a missile strike. And officials’ initial accounts of the blast, before Basayev’s death was confirmed, described it as an accidental detonation.
The differing official accounts undermine claims that Russia’s intelligence capabilities, rather than a stroke of good luck, rid the country of the feared warlord.
The inability to hunt down Basayev was a long-standing embarrassment for Russia, as he gleefully took responsibility for one terror attack after another, including the horrific Beslan school hostage-taking in September 2004 that killed more than 330 people.
Acknowledgement: All available information and documents in "Justice For North Caucasus Group" is provided for the "fair use". There should be no intention for ill-usage of any sort of any published item for commercial purposes and in any way or form. JFNC is a nonprofit group and has no intentions for the distribution of information for commercial or advantageous gain. At the same time consideration is ascertained that all different visions, beliefs, presentations and opinions will be presented to visitors and readers of all message boards of this site. Providing, furnishing, posting and publishing the information of all sources is considered a right to freedom of opinion, speech, expression, and information while at the same time does not necessarily reflect, represent, constitute, or comprise the stand or the opinion of this group. If you have any concerns contact us directly at:
eagle@JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com
