Russian forces 'kill prominent Chechen rebel'

Russian security services today killed a prominent Chechen rebel wanted for a series of planned chemical attacks, Russian news agencies reported, citing the top spokesman for Russian forces in Chechnya.

Major-General Ilya Shabalkin identified the dead rebel leader as Alash Daudov, a former police official who was also accused of complicity in the 2002 seizure of a Moscow theatre, attacks on police in Grozny and Nazran in 2004, and the seizure of more than 1,200 hostages at a school in the southern town of Beslan in September.