From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 7/12/2006 7:24 PM
BASAYEV'S MYSTERIOUS DEATH BRINGS HOPE

The death of the most notorious Chechen warlord suggests an end to conflict in
the North Caucasus could be in sight.

By Timur Aliev in Ali-Yurt, Ingushetia

Russia's most wanted man, Chechen militant leader Shamil Basayev may have met
his end by accident rather than in a deliberate hit as Russian leaders claim,
but his death certainly marks a major victory for Moscow and could result in the
armed conflict beginning to ebb away.

Ground zero for this major development is the edge of Ali-Yurt, a small village
in Ingushetia not far from the border with Chechnya. A row of unfinished houses
still lacking doors and windows stands here, facing a road that is little more
than a track, a hillside, a ravine, some fields and trees.

Few people live in this secluded spot, even though it is just five kilometres
from the capital of Ingushetia, Magas. The golden dome of the presidential
palace can be seen from here glimmering in the distance, and Ingushetia's main
city Nazran is not much further away.

At half past midnight on July 10, a powerful explosion shook the last of these
houses, followed by a sound like a burst of automatic gunfire, which later
turned out to be shells going off in rapid succession. The first blast was so
loud that it could be heard in Nazran.

Within 10 or 15 minutes, according to locals, the security services had arrived
and sealed off the area.

Local policemen who were among the first to arrive said four dead bodies dressed
in black were found at the scene, two of them relatively unscathed and the other
two mutilated. They also discovered the wreckage of a Kamaz lorry and two
Zhiguli (or Lada) cars.

Two of the dead men were identified quickly from their ID papers as Tarhan
Ganizhev and Isa Kushtov. The identities of the other two were unclear, but
preliminary investigations indicated that they were killed when the explosives
one of them was handling blew up.

Only next morning did rumours begin to circulate that one of the two
unidentified corpses was none other than famous Chechen militant Shamil Basayev,
on the run from the Russian authorities for more than 12 years. An official from
Ingushetia's FSB security service told IWPR that Basayev had been identified
because he was missing his lower leg - blown off by a mine in 2000 - although
the prosthetic limb had not been found.

Then, at four in the afternoon, the head of the Russian FSB, Nikolai Patrushev,
reported to President Vladimir Putin that "in the course of a special operation
in Ingushetia, Shamil Basayev and a whole series of bandits were eliminated".

Patrushev said the men had been planning to carry out an attack inside
Ingushetia, and to "use this act of terrorism and sabotage to put pressure on
the Russian leadership at a time when the G-8 summit is in preparation".

The media were not shown Basayev's body, but were told that he had been
identified from his head. Body tissue has been sent for DNA testing to a
laboratory in Rostov-on-Don.

The lack of a body immediately raised doubts in the minds of local people.

"Basayev has been 'killed' lots of time, and every time he has turned up alive,"
said taxi-driver Bislan Yevloyev. "Basayev himself wouldn't have gone to a
meeting like that. Are they trying to tell us he doesn't have any assistants?"

However, later the same day, the main North Caucasian Islamist website Kavkaz
Center confirmed news of Basayev's death, calling him a "martyr".

At the same time, a series of reports in the Russian media then began suggesting
that Basayev died in a operation that the security forces had planned in
advance. There was speculation that the truck was sabotaged by the Russians, or
that the explosion was triggered by a remote-controlled rocket.

Journalists were allowed to view the explosion site later in the evening, once
the remaining unexploded shells had been destroyed. Army engineers said they
blew up around 185 shells that were left after 50 went off in the night-time
blasts.

The explosion site was strewn with pieces of metal from the destroyed truck,
empty shell-cases and a few bloody pillows. The neighbouring house had suffered
badly and there was a big hole in the brick wall of its courtyard. But there was
no crater in the ground, suggesting the lorry had not yet been fully loaded up
and that the blast had gone upwards and sideways.

Chechnya's pro-Moscow prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov greeted the news joyfully,
his only regret being that "I should have killed him".

Kadyrov said that it now only remained for Doku Umarov, recently elected
president by the rebels, to be killed and the war would be over.

Spokesmen for the Chechen pro-independence government - even those had who
distanced themselves from Basayev, such as foreign minister Akhmed Zakayev who
is now resident in London - said the armed struggle against Russian forces would
continue.

However, many experts agree that the death of Basayev will fundamentally change
the situation in the North Caucasus.

"One of the last people who personified the resistance - for want of a better
word - that was formed in the time of [Jokhar] Dudayev [Chechnya's first
pro-independence president] has now gone," said Andrei Babitsky of Radio
Liberty, who has covered Chechnya intensively and whose interview with Basayev
for ABC Television last year sparked controversy.

"The work which Basayev was cultivating with militant groups and underground
groups in neighbouring republics of the North Caucasus will weaken
significantly."

Babitsky went on, "In Chechnya itself there will be no substantial changes. What
are termed 'military actions', these acts of sabotage, are in a general state of
decline."

Ilya Maksakov, a Caucasus expert and deputy director of the Agency of National
News, "With the removal of Basayev, Chechnya really can breathe freely. I will
even dare to disbelieve the many experts who ask me to remember the past
historical experience of Caucasian conflicts."

"The situation is now fundamentally different. Akhmat Kadyrov said the war would
end when there are no famous personalities left," said Maksakov, referring to
the late pro-Moscow president of Chechnya who was assassinated by the rebels.
"And they have all gone now."

Chechen political analyst Edilbek Khasmagomadov found a kind of "supreme
justice" in the unheroic manner of Basaev's death, after his relentless
self-promotion as a legendary resistance leader.

Khasmagomadov said Basayev's reputation might have been over-inflated by his PR
skills, "All the major acts of terrorism of the last few years for which Basayev
took responsibility were planned from the beginning as propaganda for himself
and his abilities."

Predicting that other figures would continue where the late rebel commander left
off, Khasmagomadov noted, "Basayev was not the cause of instability in the North
Caucasus. He merely exploited the situation; he did not create it."

In Chechnya, few people had words of sympathy for the dead man.

Luiza Asayeva, a 34-year-old accountant living in Grozny, said she had been
affected by the deaths of other pro-independence leaders such as former
president Aslan Maskhadov and well-known commander Ruslan Gelayev - but not by
Basayev's demise.

"I took the death of Maskhadov to heart in purely human terms," she said. "The
same thing happened with the death of Gelayev - I thought that if we could have
come to terms with him, it would have been very beneficial. But Basayev did not
inspire any human sympathy.

Asayeva said she believed Basayev's departure would mean an end to the era of
conflict.

"The war had virtually stopped anyway. But this is the complete end," she said.
"His position, his level, his authority - in a negative way - none of the other
rebel leaders has any of that.

"There won't be another Basayev."

Timur Aliev is IWPR's Chechnya editor, based in Nazran.