Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

The mass hostage-taking at a Russian school which led to the deaths of many Russian children was planned by Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted Chechen rebel, who has been behind several major attacks outside Chechnya. Basayev is a compatriot and acquaintance of Maskhadov who is an associate of Akhmadov who is being harbored by the United States.

The U.S. has granted asylum to exiled Chechen leader, Ilyas Akhmadov, the foreign minister of the exiled leadership of the separatist Russian republic.

Akhmadov was reappointed this month . (August 2004) to the foreign minister-in-exile position by Aslan Maskhadov.

Though Akhmadov has repeatedly spoken out against terrorism, especially since filing his asylum application in the U.S., Maskhadov in recent months has adopted a much more militant tone.

Maskhadov, who recently reappointed Akhmadov to the foreign minister-in-exile position, had always been careful to distance himself from major terrorist attacks, also vowed to kill whoever wins the Kremlin-engineered presidential elections scheduled in the republic later this month.

In an interview videotaped for Chechen Television, a transcript of which was distributed on the Kavkaz Center website, Maskhadov vowed there would be "massive operations" in Ingushetia and "an expansion of the theater of operations."

The website also displayed video footage of Maskhadov standing next to Basayev, who had taken responsibility for terrorist attacks on civilians in Russia, including the 2002 seizure of the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow that ended in the deaths of dozens of hostage-takers and captives.

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Al-Qaeda may have financed Russia school raid


Reuters

Posted online: Friday, September 03, 2004 at 2031 hours IST


Moscow, September 3: The mass hostage-taking at a Russian school was led by a senior Chechen rebel commander and possibly financed by al-Qaeda, Itar-Tass news agency quoted sources in the regional security service as saying.


The sources said that according to early information, Chechen commander Magomet Yevloyev led the seizure of hundreds of children and adults in the school in the province of North Ossetia which ended in bloodshed on Friday.

They said the operation had been planned by Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted Chechen rebel, who has been behind several major attacks outside Chechnya.

Russian officials say rebels fighting for the region's independence from Moscow are under strong influence from Wahhabism, a strict form of Sunni Islam.

Wahhabism, the only permitted form of Islam in Saudi Arabia, is banned in Russia. "Apart from that, there is information that the hostage seizure was financed by one of the ideologists of Wahhabism, Abu Omar As-Seyf, who is al Qaeda's representative in Chechnya," one source was quoted as saying.

Russian officials have suggested that other recent attacks in Russia, blamed on Chechen separatists, may also have been linked to al Qaeda.


http://www.expressindia.com/cricket/fulleistory.php?content_id=35781

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