Chechen leaders seek to 'liquidate' warlord: New government puts $5-mill bounty on terrorist's head

Chechen leaders seek to 'liquidate' warlord
New government puts $5-million bounty on terrorist's head

Adding to his reputation as the "Most Wanted Man in Russia," Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev is now the most hunted man in Chechnya.

Yesterday, the head of the security police in Chechnya's new pro-Russian government went on television and announced a "group of Chechen businessmen" has offered a US$5-million bounty for any information that helps "neutralize" Mr. Basayev.

Ramadan Kadyrov, son of Chechnya's recently elected President, Akhmad Kadyrov, and head of his father's security service, claimed Mr. Basayev is the only remaining Chechen leader fighting Russian troops in the bloodstained republic.

"So we want to liquidate him, pure and simple, to end this grinding war," Mr. Kadyrov said.

Like U.S. officials in Iraq who have been trying to hunt down Saddam Hussein for the past eight months, Russia and its proxy government in Chechnya are hoping human greed will give them the results their own armed might hasn't.

Mr. Basayev, a balding 38-year-old with a bushy beard, is both a terrorist mastermind and one of the most successful Chechen guerrilla leaders in a decade-old ethnic rebellion that has convulsed both Chechnya and Russia.

Despite losing a leg to a Russian land mine during vicious streetfighting in Grozny three years ago, Mr. Basayev has continued to marshal a band of Islamic guerrillas and Chechen nationalists from bases in the Caucasus mountains.

He has claimed credit for planning the Chechen rebel raid on Moscow's Dubrovka Theatre in October, 2002, which left 129 dead. And he has vowed "to take Chechnya's war on to Russian territory," attacking Russians inside Russia with a wave of suicide bombings.

To back up that claim, Mr. Basayev recently bragged he personally detonated the explosives on suicide bombers who destroyed an administrative headquarters complex in Grozny last December, killing 78 people.

Most recently, he has threatened to disrupt Russia's parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held on Dec. 7.

Russian security officials are taking the threat seriously and have beefed up security around Moscow, fearing another of Mr. Basayev's sensational attacks.

Those fears may be justified, since the Chechen commander has linked his guerrilla group with a band of Wahhabist fundamentalist Arabs who have direct links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Last August, the U.S. State Department declared Mr. Basayev and his Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs a terrorist group and moved to freeze any assets he or the group might have in the United States.

Like his ancestors, who waged an ultimately unsuccessful 20-year war against the Czar's imperial Russian army in the mid-19th century, Mr. Basayev believes he, too, is waging a religious war to defend Islam in the Caucasus.

Mr. Basayev plunged into a life of violent confrontation in 1991, when the former Soviet Union began to disintegrate.

In August, 1991, when communists attempted a coup in Moscow, Mr. Basayev rallied to support former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, rushing to the barricades armed with hand grenades.

Three months later, when a new local government led by former Soviet air force General Dzhokhar Dudayev declared Chechen independence, he returned home and staged a spectacular airplane hijack in support of the Chechen independence movement.

He and a small band of companions forced a Russian airliner to fly to Ankara, where he demanded a news conference to highlight Chechnya's plight, warning the Russian army was poised to crush the tiny state.

The hijacking ended without incident and Turkish officials let Mr. Basayev escape.

While the affair established Mr. Basayev's reputation as a daring and dangerous leader, it accomplished little. The Russian parliament refused to ratify Mr. Yeltsin's invasion plans and the first Russian invasion of Chechnya was put off until 1994.

When Russian troops did finally move to crush the rebellion, the result was two years of war, tens of thousands dead and much of Grozny in ruin. Mr. Basayev became known as Chechnya's top guerrilla field commander, frequently defeating Russian troops in savage street battles in Grozny. He also developed a reputation for elusiveness, as the Russians proudly but erroneously reported they had killed him at least three times.

In 1995, Mr. Basayev won further notoriety when he and a band of 150 guerrillas crossed into Russia and seized 1,500 hostages in the village of Budyonnovsk.

Keeping his captives in a local hospital, Mr. Basayev held the Russians to a bloody standoff that cost the lives of more than 100 people. But in the end, he negotiated his group's escape aboard six buses and even used a refrigerated truck to carry home the bodies of his dead comrades.

Hmmm I can shoot pretty good . . . I've neer been to southern Russia . . . and I could use the money . . . HHHhhmmmmmmm

Try not to spend all your riches in one place....Oh, and while you're down south, avoid the grits. They're not grits.

MOSCOW - Wages of contract servicemen in the Russian Army have been raised. A corresponding decree by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov was published in the Russkaya Gazeta (Russian Newspaper). According to the decree, the monthly wage of a rifleman will be RUR 1,110 (about $36.50), and a sniper will get RUR 1,221 (about $40.50). The salary of a battalion commander will be about RUR 3,000 (about $99.60).

Commenting on this decree, Colonel General Yuri Baluyevski, Senior Deputy Head of the General Staff, noted that the monetary allowance of the military included a base wage, depending on a military rank, and various bonuses such a longevity pay. In addition, a 10 percent bonus is paid for work with secret documents.

According to Col. Gen. Baluyevski, contract soldiers serving in Moscow will get much less than those serving in ‘hot spots’ or in the Far North. “We think that monetary allowance of contract servicemen should rise according to the longevity of service,” he said. “In addition, there are many other benefits. Those who sign a contract for the first time, gets a dislocation allowance,” Col. Gen. Baluyevski added.

He stressed that the Defense Ministry paid close attention to the institution of sergeants. “Documents drafted by the General Staff say that the number of sergeants serving on contract will soon reach 60 percent of the total number of sergeants serving in the army,” the military official pointed out. According to him, experienced sergeants will get much higher salaries compared to inexperienced officers. Col. Gen. Baluyevski said his new wage was RUR 4,095 (about $136.00).

Meanwhile, for the first time over the past decade, the Defense Ministry and the General Staff have faced a shortage of draftees in 2003. According to the Defense Ministry, the army did not receive 27,807 draftees this autumn. Indeed, there has been a decline in the birth rate of males since 1998. In 1988, 1.25m boys were born; in 1995, the number was 700,000; and in 1999 – just 600,000. In view of this, the Defense Ministry forecasts that the armed forces will face a real demographic problem beginning 2006.

In addition, the health condition of draftees has worsened significantly. According to statistics, out of every 100 young men of draft age, only 66 were fit for military service in the spring of 2003. 54 percent had health restrictions; more than 5 percent had previous convictions; only 22 percent had basic and secondary education, more than 20 percent came from problematic families, 5 percent were registered as drug users; and seven people were illiterate.

###

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.