Russia's most wanted terrorist, Chechen leader Shamil Basayev, was killed in a special operation in the North Caucasus, the head of the FSB intelligence service said in Moscow yesterday.Basayev was the perpetrator of numerous terrorist atrocities that killed hundreds.. including the Beslan school attack in 2004. He died in an exploding truck carrying arms that was boobytrapped by Russian FSB forces in the republic of Ingushetia, FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
Basayev's body was identified from fragments left from the blast, said the deputy prime minister of Ingushetia, Bashir Aushev.
He and five other Islamic terrorists who were killed 'were preparing a terrorist attack to exert pressure on the Russian leadership during the planned G8 summit,' Patrushev said.
'This is just retribution against the bandits for (the deaths of) our children in Beslan, Budennovsk and for all the terrorist acts they carried out in Moscow and other regions of Russia,' Putin said. 'We understand very well that the terrorist threat is still great and we cannot let our guard drop,' he added.
One of the victims of Beslan..
According to Patrushev, arms purchases abroad helped lead the FSB to the terrorist.
It's also very possible that a tip-off played a role as it did with Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov, who died in a special forces raid in March 2005. Basayev's head also carried a 10-million-dollar reward.
Basayev was a veteran leader of Islamist forces in the Georgian province of Abkhazia and later in Chechnya. Basayev comanded bombings and raids resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians in the North Caucasus and even in Moscow.
Basayev was a key player in the Iranian/al Qaeda plans to take over the mainly Muslim North Caucasus and create an Islamic caliphate.
He openly claimed responsibility for the massacre of a school in Beslan in southern Russia on September 1, 2004, and the subsequent deaths of 330 people, more than half of them children.
He was also a leader of the 2002 theater siege in Moscow that led to the deaths of 129 hostages.
Basayev's last position was as deputy to Doku Umarov, who took over as rebel leader when pro-Russian forces in June killed Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, Maskhadov's successor.
Having said all that...as a fair person, I have to acknowledge that unlike the vast majority of their Muslim brethren, the Chechens have a real and actual grievance against the Russians. Russian terrorism against the Chechens, such as the shelling of the civilian population of the Chechen capital of Grozny and the widespread abuse of Chechen women by Russian troops were horrible crimes, and the Russians bear a great deal of responsibility for paving the way for the Chechen's alliance with Iran and al Qaeda.
That in NO WAY excuses Basayev and his crimes...and I hope the Russians buried him in a nice pigskin.
Rot in hell, jihadi.
what a doofus.
ReplyDeletethe old exploding truck gimmick.
that's so old it ain't funny.
is this the guy ABC talked to and lost their operating rights in the ussr?
chechnya & iran have an alliance?
i thought russia and iran had an alliance?
is that "the friend of my friend is my enemy"?
i'm just sooooo confused.........
Hi Louie!
ReplyDeleteNo inconsistency, IMO.
Russia has an alliance with Iran the way Hitler had an alliance with Stalin.
Iran has long supplied men and money to the seperatist Chechens..and I'm certain that part of Putin's deal with Iran was that they cut off the flow.
Iran, of course is now using al Qaeda as its conduit, providing them with `plausible deniability'. They are simply stringing Putin along, playing both ends against the middle waiting for the right time to put the knife in.
Read this: J O S H U A P U N D I T: Iran sends mixed messages on incentives package..and picks up some important new allies.
this:J O S H U A P U N D I T: Putin sticks it to the West..again
And this:J O S H U A P U N D I T: Iran begins processing 2nd batch of uranium; Bush and Putin meet
Have a good one!
I agree with the statement that Russia has done some really terrible things to the Chechen people, but that does justify Basayev's terrorist actions.....
ReplyDeleteThe BBC blog has lots of pro-Basayev posts up this PM which I found very strange......
You mean there are actually Islamists and jihadis In Londonistan? Terrorist groupies and symphathizers? And the Beeb printed their posts without purging them for `objectionable content'?
ReplyDeleteReally??? You must be joking..
Sorry about the sarcasm, Priest...its just that I've been following how the Beeb, the British press and the British government have treated Muslim terrorists and their symphatizers for quite some time...especially when it was mostly the Evil Joos of Israel and Jews in the streets of London who were being attacked.
Starting with the PM's wife, Cherie Blair, BTW. Read up on her some time.
The Jews, as always, are civilization's early warning system. Now that London has been bombed and polls indicate that a large proportion of Britain's Muslims feel no loyalty to the country they reside in and support a jihadi takeover of Britain, things have changed somewhat and the Brits have become aware of the problem, and are still scratching their colective heads trying to figure out how to deal with it. I'm sure several of the posts stated something to the effect that Muslims in Britain need a `hero' like Basayev to lead them.
I wish the Brits luck in dealing with this luck, truly. They're going to need it.
Thanks for dropping by, Priest