Car blast kills former Chechen leader

An official from the Qatar Civil Defense Department collects debris from the site of a blast which hit the car of former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev on Friday. Yandarbiyev, an Islamic extremist linked by Moscow to al-Qaeda, died of injuries he sustained in the blast. PHOTO: REUTERS

Former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, whose extradition from Qatar had been demanded by Russia, was killed in a car blast here Friday, the first such incident in the Gulf state which often hosts rebel figures.

An interior ministry source told the official QNA news agency that Yandarbiyev, who was residing in Qatar "temporarily," was killed and his 13-year-old son wounded when a blast targeted their car as they returned from weekly prayers at a Doha mosque.

The source said authorities had launched an investigation into the fatal attack. Qatar's public security chief, Mubarak Hassan al-Nasr, later told the Doha-based Al-Jazeera news channel the evidence was still being collected and finger-pointing would be premature.

Officials did not give details about the nature of the blast, which occurred shortly after the noon Muslim prayers.

Witnesses said it occurred at a crossing in the Al-Dafna residential area, some 300m from the mosque. They said that they saw no explosive device being hurled at Yandarbiyev's white Land Cruiser, suggesting a time bomb might have been planted inside the vehicle or that an explosive was detonated by remote control.

Russia had demanded Yandarbiyev's extradition.