Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, the most wanted man in Russia who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school hostage massacre and was blamed for many other attacks, has been killed, Russian news agencies said yesterday, quoting the FSB security service.
FSB security agency chief Nikolai Patrushev said Basayev had been planning an attack in southern Russia to disrupt the G8 summit of world leaders President Vladimir Putin is hosting this weekend in St Petersburg.
Putin said Basayev's death was "deserved retribution" for his campaign of killing.
More than 331 people, half of them children, were killed in Beslan in September 2004 after Russian forces tried to end a siege of the school which had been seized by Islamist militants linked to Chechnya's fight for independence.
"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 Ingushetia and Chechnya," Putin said in televised comments.
Patrushev said that Basayev, together with other Chechen fighters, had been killed in Ingushetia, a region neighboring Chechnya.
Patrushev said it was in Ingushetia that Basayev and his men had been planning to carry out a terrorist act to coincide with the G8 summit.
Pictures on state television showed the wreckage of a truck that had been packed with explosives and apparently blew up, killing Basayev and several other rebels.
There was no information that the truck had been under fire from security forces when the blast happened.
A statement on Web site www.kavkazcenter.com said the Chechen rebel leadership was not making any comment for the time being.
The heavily-bearded Basayev, who was born in 1965, professed to be a devout Muslim. His left foot was blown off by a mine in 2000 and he wore a prosthesis.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in