Chechen warlord Basayev killed
Afp, Moscow
Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, the most wanted man in Russia who claimed responsibility for the Beslan school hostage massacre and was blamed for many other attacks, has been killed, Russian news agencies said Monday, quoting the FSB security service. Basayev was killed in an overnight operation by Russian special forces in the southern Russian province of Ingushetia in the volatile North Caucasus bordering Chechnya, where Russia is engaged in its second war against Chechen rebels in the past 11 years, Interfax and RIA Novosti said. FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev reportedly announced the news but an FSB spokesman contacted by AFP said he was in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin and declined to confirm the information. The news agency quoted Patrushev as saying that Basayev was among a group of militants killed as they prepared to carry out an unspecified "terrorist act" in Ingushetia designed to compromise the Kremlin in the run-up to the Group of Eight summit later this week in Saint Petersburg. The agency reports said Putin had congratulated "all members of the special services who planned and executed this operation."
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