Chechen rebel leader blamed for Beslan slaughter killed

CHECHEN rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, blamed by Russia for last year's school hostage slaughter, has been killed during an army raid, Russian President Vladimir Putin was told yesterday.

Russian television coverage showed footage of a shirtless, grey-bearded, corpse that resembled Mr Maskhadov.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed deputy Chechen prime minister, said Russian forces had intended to take Mr Maskhadov alive, but he was killed by careless weapons-handling by his bodyguards.

The Interfax new agency said three Maskhadov aides were detained.

Mr Maskhadov's envoy in London, Akhmed Zakayev, said Maskhadov was probably dead, though he had no personal confirmation. Federal Security Service head Nikolai Patrushev told Mr Putin that MR Maskhadov had been killed in a "special operation" in Tolstoy-Yurt, a village in north-central Chechnya that generally has been under tight control of Russian forces.

Mr Putin then hailed the success and added: "We must augment the effort aimed at the defence of the citizens of the republic."

Colonel Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for forces in the region, was reported as saying that Mr Maskhadov's body was found in a bunker.

TV showed what it said was a security service video showing troops in camouflage and black masks sifting through guns and unfolding a green-red-and-white Chechen flag.

Adding to the seeming intrigue, Interfax cited Kadyrov as saying that the hope was that Mr Maskhadov would surrender, and that he would have been offered a high-ranking position in the Chechen security forces.

Earlier yesterday, Russian officials reported that three rebels, who were planning a large terrorist attack on the administration building in Tolstoy-Yurt, had been captured.

Mr Maskhadov led the Chechen separatists who fought Russian forces to a standstill in a 1994-'96 war and he became the republic's president after the Russian military withdrew.

But he appeared to lose substantial influence to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev and by the time Russian forces returned to Chechnya in 1999, he was believed by many to command loyalty among only a relatively small faction of fighters. Mr Maskhadov was regarded by some observers as comparatively moderate, in contrast to Mr Basayev, an adherent of the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam and who has claimed responsibility for some of Russia's most horrifying terrorist attacks, including last year's seizure of a school in Beslan, North Ossetia which left more than 330 people dead, about half of them children.

Mr Maskhadov last week called on Mr Putin to meet to discuss an end to the war.

But the Kremlin has firmly rejected talks with any rebel faction and Russian officials consistently have alleged Mr Maskhadov was connected to terrorist attacks such as the school seizure and the 2002 seizure of hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theatre.