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Rather than the January 24th suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport (that claimed 36 lives and wounded almost 200) giving rise to a soul searching by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it has sadly given rise to hypocrisy on his part. Moscow’s investigation into the attack is still ongoing. But earlier this month, in a very chilling video, Doku Umarov—the self-styled emir of the Causasus Emirate—claimed responsibility for it.Threatening further attacks, Umarov said, "With Allah's grace, we will make this year for you a year of blood and tears."

Russian security forces dealt a double blow to the al Qaeda-linked Caucasus Emirate during operations in the southern Russian republics late last week. Emir Magas, the military commander of the Caucasus Emirate, was captured and Yasir Amarat, a wanted terrorist commander from Jordan, was killed during raids by Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB. On June 9, the FSB captured Emir Magas, whose real name is Ali Taziyev, during a raid in the village of Malgobek in the Republic of Ingushetia. Kavkaz Center, a jihadist website that supports the Caucasus Emirate, confirmed Magas' capture and noted his importance. Magas has...

A fascinating piece by Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal [July 2] with the title: “How a Secret, Failed Trip to Chechnya Turned Key Plotter’s Focus to America and bin Laden.” The key plotter in this case was 9/11 mastermind and bin Laden’s Egyptian lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The article’s title suggests that Zawahiri’s failure to settle in Chechnya (due to his “detention” by the KGB/FSB in 1996-97) led him to Afghanistan and an alliance with bin Laden. But according to ranking U.S. terrorism expert, Yossef Bodansky, Egyptian Jihad leader Zawahiri was preparing a massive...

www.polit.ru Elina Ersenoyeva A Chechen woman believed to be the last wife of Shamil Basayev is being held by law enforcement agents, who are pumping her for information on her infamous late husband, human rights activists say.Elina Ersenoyeva, 26, disappeared in Grozny on Aug. 17. News of her marriage to Basayev -- Russia's No. 1 terrorist until his death in an explosion on July 9 -- first appeared last Wednesday on the web site of the Chechen Council of Nongovernmental Organizations.Ersenoyeva married Basayev in secret and against her will in November 2005, Tatyana Lokshina, an expert with the International...

The death of Russia's most-wanted man, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, ends a long hunt for the fugitive, but questions were raised Tuesday over what caused the dynamite-filled truck next to his car to explode. Rebels close to Basayev said the explosion that caused his death Monday was an accident, but reports also circulated of a targeted missile strike and of a secret services operation that had an agent detonating the truck's explosives. -snip Russian newspapers reported Tuesday that Basayev's death resulted from a carefully planned secret services operation that used a shipment of weapons and explosives to ensnare the warlord...

Demise of Shamil BasayevBy Pyotr Romanov UPI Outside View Commentator MOSCOW -- Russia's latest Caucasian war appears to be over, and the killing of warlord Shamil Basayev is yet another serious argument in favor of this opinion. Individuals have always played a particularly important role in the Caucasus. Now that Basayev is dead, there is no one else in the region to hate Russia and despise life, his own and the lives of others, as much as he did. Basayev's formidable hatred of Russians was irrational, although he and others sometimes explained it by the logic of the life-or-death struggle...

President George W. Bush on Monday said if Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev was killed, "he deserved it." Russian officials said Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the bloody Beslan school siege in 2004, was killed in an operation by special forces. "If he is in fact the person who ordered the killing of children in Beslan, he deserved it," Bush said. U.S. authorities were still gathering details on whether it was Basayev who was killed, he said.

MOSCOW - Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, the purported author of modern Russia's worst terrorist attacks, was killed Monday, the head of the Federal Security Service said. FSB head Nikolai Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin that Basayev had been killed overnight in Ingushetia — a republic bordering Chechnya that was plagued by sporadic spillover violence from the separatist region. Patrushev's meeting with Putin was shown on Russian state television. Basayev, 41, claimed responsibility for some of Russia's worst terror attacks, including the seizure of some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater in 2002, the 2004 school hostage taking in Beslan that...

Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev - dubbed the Beast of Beslan - has been killed by Russia's security forces. The radical Islamic leader was behind the Beslan school siege in which hundreds of people, mostly children, were killed. Basayev, 41, together with other Chechen fighters, was killed in Ingushetia, a region neighbouring Chechnya, in an operation by Russian special forces, Russia said. President Vladimir Putin said Basayev's killing was "deserved retribution". "This is deserved retribution against the bandits for our children in Beslan, in Budennovsk, for all these acts of terror they committed in Moscow and other Russian regions, including...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, was killed overnight, handing a huge boost to President Vladimir Putin on Monday as he prepared to host a Group of Eight summit. FSB security chief Nikolai Patrushev said Basayev, who had claimed responsibility for the bloody 2004 Beslan school siege, had been about to mount an attack in southern Russia to mar the weekend G8 summit Putin will chair in St Petersburg. Putin, whose already huge popularity at home will be further boosted by the news as he prepares to meet President Bush and other world leaders,...

Russian news agencies report killing of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who has claimed responsibility for Beslan school raid, in which 331 people died.

Shooting has broken out in the southern Russian city of Nalchik, five days after 130 people were killed in clashes between security forces and rebels. Officials said they were in the middle of a fresh operation against militants, who are believed to have Chechen links. There were reports of gunshot in three districts of the city, including close to the morgue where the bodies of dozens of those killed are being held. Residents are being urged to stay in their homes. Parents are also being advised to collect their children from school. Russian media reports say police killed a...

ALARM - Naltchik: the police force gives the attack to a building NALTCHIK (Russia) - the police force gave the attack Friday morning to a store of Naltchik (the Caucasus of north) where had taken refuge Thursday of the combatants of an armed commando, noted a journalist of AFP.

Influential militant killed by Basayev's order, Chechen police say18.09.2005, 00.17 GROZNY, September 18 (Itar-Tass) - Chechnya's First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, who supervises law-enforcement bodies, said influential field commander Akhmed Avdorkhanov had been killed. Avdorkhanov was killed by the order of terrorist Shamil Basayev, Kadyrov said in a statement on Saturday, because they quarreled over "a 1.5-million-dollar fund that had come to militants from their foreign sponsors." "Basayev killed him because he wanted to take all the money," he added. Avdorkhanov was chief of guards of militants' leader Aslan Maskhadov, destroyed in an operation by federal forces in the...

Chechen claims he tricked Russians By C.J. Chivers The New York Times FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 MOSCOW Shamil Basayev, the Chechen terrorist leader and mastermind of the siege last year at School No.1 in Beslan, claims that the siege was made possible with the help of Russia's special services, who allowed the terrorists a safe passage near the school. In an announcement on a Web site that frequently posts his statements and videos, Basayev said Wednesday that he had deceived Russian intelligence services, who believed his terrorists would attack a government center in the regional capital and cleared a route...

It became known yesterday that Ichkerian President Abdul-Khalim Saidulaev has formed anew cabinet of ministers. The main sensation is that Shamil Basaev and Movladi Udugov as first deputy prime minister and minister of information and the press, respectively, after being dismissed from those posts by former president Aslan Maskhadov. The new Ichkerian administration intends to change both its domestic and foreign policies. Maskhadov's foreign minister, Ilyas Akhmadov, whom followers of Basaev criticized for his support of the idea of “limited sovereignty,” has lost his post. The last administration, formed by Maskhadov, who was killed on March 8, was dissolved by...

Shamil Basayev, the self-professed terrorist behind the siege of a school in Beslan last year, has been named deputy prime minister in Chechnya's outlawed rebel leadership, in what may indicate a radicalisation of the separatist movement. Aslan Maskhadov, the former rebel leader killed by Russian forces in March, had distanced himself from Mr Basayev, throwing him out of the rebel leadership in 2002. But Mr Maskhadov's successor, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, has named him first deputy chairman of his cabinet, overseeing national security and internal affairs. This came days before the anniversary of the attack in Beslan in North Ossetia, neighbouring Chechnya,...

Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it will not renew permission for ABC-TV to operate in the country after the network broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord. In a statement, the ministry said ABC would be considered "undesirable" by all Russian state agencies because of an interview with Shamil Basayev, which was broadcast last week on "Nightline."

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it will not renew permission for ABC-TV to operate in the country after the network broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord. In a statement, the ministry said ABC would be considered "undesirable" by all Russian state agencies because of an interview with Shamil Basayev, which was broadcast last week on "Nightline." The ministry called the broadcast a "clear fact supporting the propaganda of terrorism" and said it "resounded with direct calls for violence against Russian citizens." As a result, the ministry said it decided "not to renew the accreditations of...

MOSCOW, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Moscow on Tuesday said journalists for the U.S. television channel ABC would be barred from working in Russia after the channel broadcast an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev. It said accreditations for ABC's reporters would not be renewed and that, in the mean time, they would be banned from talking to any Russian officials. Free speech advocates have repeatedly criticised President Vladimir Putin's government for reining in the Russian press, but this appeared to be the first action against a major Western media organisation. "ABC is now unwelcome to contact any Russian state...