The deceased.
Posted on 02/13/2004 10:23:01 PM PST by Destro
UPDATED AT 11:27 PM EST Friday, Feb. 13, 2004
Killing of key Chechen separatist seen as retaliation
By MARK MacKINNON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Moscow — One of the key figures of the Chechen separatist movement, who was near the top of Russia's most-wanted list, was killed by a car bomb yesterday, one week after an attack on the Moscow subway that was blamed on Chechen rebels.
Former Chechen president Zelimkham Yandarbiyev died in a Qatari hospital yesterday, hours after a bomb tore through his white Jeep, killing two bodyguards and seriously wounding his 13-year-old son. Mr. Yandarbiyev, who was leaving a mosque, had been living in exile in Doha, the Qatari capital, since 2000.
He had long been sought by Russia's secret services, joining rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and notorious warlord Shamil Basayev on the most-wanted list. Mr. Yandarbiyev, 51, was suspected of helping to plan and finance several spectacular attacks on Russian soil, including last week's bombing of the subway, which killed at least 40 people, and the October, 2002, mass hostage-taking at a downtown Moscow theatre, which ended with more than 170 people dead.
Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (known as the SVR) issued a statement saying it had no involvement in yesterday's attack and that it had not conducted an assassination abroad since 1959.
However, suspicions remained, in part because the attack came just five days after Vyacheslav Ushakov, deputy head of the Federal Security Bureau, the domestic equivalent of the SVR, complained that Russian efforts to clamp down on Chechen rebels were hampered by foreign countries providing asylum to people he called "terrorists." He mentioned Mr. Yandarbiyev by name.
Moscow repeatedly sought Mr. Yandarbiyev's extradition to face terrorism charges, and complained that the Qatari government was sympathetic to the rebels. Last year, at Russia's behest, he was added to a UN list of people connected to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
But Mr. Yandarbiyev had other enemies as well. In recent years, he cut ties with Mr. Maskhadov, and some pro-Moscow Chechens suggested yesterday that the attack was a settling of accounts between rebel factions. Some rebels had accused Mr. Yandarbiyev of siphoning resistance money for personal use.
"You will find no one [in Chechnya] who will regret what happened to Yandarbiyev," Akhmad Kadyrov, the pro-Kremlin leader of Chechnya, said yesterday. "He was the main ideologist of the separatists and later of the terrorist organizations who drove Chechnya to such grave consequences. He is to blame for everything that was going on."
But other Chechens said they had no doubt a Russian hand was behind the apparent assassination.
"In the 21st century, along with ice-picks and poisoned umbrellas, the Kremlin's terrorists now use bombs," Ibragim Gabi, a former aide to Mr. Yandarbiyev, was quoted as saying on a pro-rebel website, referring to weapons used by Soviet-era spies to eliminate political opponents.
A writer by trade, Mr. Yandarbiyev was seen as having helped to establish the intellectual argument for the revival of the centuries-old idea of Chechen independence. He became acting president of Chechnya in 1996, after the Russian air force killed the previous leader, Dzhokar Dudayev, in a missile strike. In 1997, Mr. Yandarbiyev lost an election to Mr. Maskhadov, and fled Chechnya soon after the Russian army re-entered the republic in 1999. From exile, he travelled the Muslim world raising support for the Chechen cause, making frequent trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
As the Chechen fight moved from being a purely nationalist one into something fuelled by Islamic fundamentalists, Mr. Yandarbiyev also became more radical. He referred to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a "friend" to the Chechen cause, and said after the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that Chechens would shelter the fugitive leader if needed.
The deceased.
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