# Chechnya



## Baloo (8 Mar 2005)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4330039.stm


Chechen leader Maskhadov 'killed'
Maskhadov's body as shown on Russian TV
Russia blamed Maskhadov for a series of attacks
Russian forces say Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has been killed.

Russian television showed pictures of a body resembling that of Mr Maskhadov, 53, in a pool of blood in Chechnya.

But President Vladimir Putin has asked for further identification. Chechens have not confirmed the death, which a spokesman said was likely to be true.

The spokesman said Chechnya's war of independence would not be affected by the death of Mr Maskhadov - the most moderate of Chechen rebel commanders.

QUICK GUIDE

The Chechen conflict

Mr Maskhadov was elected Chechen president in January 1997 but was ousted two years later.

Thousands of people - many of them civilians - have been killed in the 10-year war between Russian forces and Chechen separatists.

Further identification

Few details have been released of the Russian operation at the settlement of Tolstoy-Yurt, near the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Col Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for Russian forces in the Caucasus region, earlier told news agencies that Mr Maskhadov's body had been found in a bunker.



What happened in the raid?

But it was not clear whether he had been killed by the Russian forces.

Chechnya's Moscow-appointed Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax news agency the intention had been to take Mr Maskhadov alive but that he had been was killed by careless weapons-handling by his bodyguards.

Russia's FSB security chief briefed President Putin on the troops' operation in a Chechen village, but did not say how Mr Maskhadov was killed.

He told the president the FSB security services "today carried out an operation in the settlement of Tolstoy-Yurt, as a result of which "the international terrorist and leader of armed groups Maskhadov was killed, and his closest comrades-in-arms detained".

"Carry out additional identification tests, report back," Mr Putin ordered.

"If this information is confirmed, grant state awards to all those involved in the operation," the Russian leader said.

"We have to gather our forces to protect the people of the republic and citizens of all Russia from the bandits," Mr Putin said.

Russian television showed pictures of a grey-bearded and shirtless corpse in a pool of blood, but a Chechen spokesman said he was not convinced.


The resistance will continue, no doubt about it
Akhmed Zakayev
Chechen spokesman

Obituary: Aslan Maskhadov

However, one of Mr Maskhadov's oldest allies, Akhmed Zakayev, told Ekho Moskvy radio from London that the Russian announcement was likely to be true.

But this would not affect Chechnya's pursuit of independence, he said.

"The resistance will continue, no doubt about it," Mr Zakayev said.

If the death is confirmed, this will be a major coup for Moscow, the BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Moscow says.

Moscow has blamed Mr Maskhadov for a string of deadly attacks in Russia, including a rebel attack on a school in the south Russian town of Beslan last September in which more than 330 hostages - half of them children - died.

He led the Chechen separatists who defeated Russian forces in a 1994-1996 war.

Mr Putin sent Russian troops back into Chechnya in October 1999.












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I, for one, am glad to see this. He was a terrorist, and murderer, and will hopefully enable the Chechens to come to the negotiating table with the Russians.


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## Marty (8 Mar 2005)

He was all those things and probably more .............but he is more likely going to be made a matyr with someone else stepping  forward to continue the terror. But if thier aim was to take them out one at a time ,I say he was a good place to start!


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## Quiet Riot (9 Mar 2005)

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/136497/1/.html


> MOSCOW : Chechen rebels have vowed to pursue and expand their fight for independence from Russia, calling the killing of their leader Aslan Maskhadov a fleeting coup for the Kremlin that obliterated any hope of a negotiated end to the conflict.
> 
> "The occupiers and puppets are celebrating what they regard as a victory," stated a commentary Wednesday on an Internet website regularly used by the rebels.
> 
> ...


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## putz (9 Mar 2005)

Good for the Russians its about time that this happened.  The results should help bolster support from the people in Russia, show the citizens that something good is happening.



> I, for one, am glad to see this. He was a terrorist, and murderer, and will hopefully enable the Chechens to come to the negotiating table with the Russians.



I was under the understanding that the Chechens have been trying to negotiate with the Russians and the Russians are turning them away....


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## dutchie (9 Mar 2005)

putz said:
			
		

> I was under the understanding that the Chechens have been trying to negotiate with the Russians and the Russians are turning them away....



I was under the impression he and his ilk are child murderers. Once a group/person uses terrorism (especially against children) to advance their cause, they give up their right to negotiations. 

He got what he deserves. Here's hoping the rest of those savages follow the same path.


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## Edward Campbell (9 Mar 2005)

Baloo said:
			
		

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4330039.stm
> 
> 
> Chechen leader Maskhadov 'killed'
> ...



And Putin is what?   A democrat?   A defender of individual liberty?


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## putz (9 Mar 2005)

Caesar said:
			
		

> I was under the impression he and his ilk are child murderers. Once a group/person uses terrorism (especially againsty children) to advance their cause, they give up their right to negotiations.
> 
> He got what he deserves. Here's hoping the rest of those savages follow the same path.



Can't agree more (I wasn't being sarcastic in my last posts)



> And Putin is what?  A democrat?  A defender of individual liberty?



A leader that is trying to keep his country together (albeit some people see this as the wrong way).  Lets remember the Chechen/Russian conflicts have been ongoing for Hundreds of years.  Also, there was a shaky truce in place until 1999 when the Chechen's starting bombing the Russian public.  What were seeing now, in my humble opinion, is the PERFECT example of a country stating " WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS"


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## Infanteer (9 Mar 2005)

putz said:
			
		

> " WE DO NOT NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS"



Although I don't find the Beslan incident at all the sign of a "freedom struggle", I will, as Edward Campbell already suggested, point out the fact that perhaps the Chechens, after the way that the Russians handled Grozney and the Civil War, have also claimed "We do not negotiate with (state) Terrorism."


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## dutchie (9 Mar 2005)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Chechens, after the way that the Russians handled Grozney and the Civil War, have also claimed "We do not negotiate with (state) Terrorism."



And that, very plainly, is the rub.


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## putz (9 Mar 2005)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Although I don't find the Beslan incident at all the sign of a "freedom struggle", I will, as Edward Campbell already suggested, point out the fact that perhaps the Chechens, after the way that the Russians handled Grozney and the Civil War, have also claimed "We do not negotiate with (state) Terrorism."



Yes, that is possible but that also goes down the same lines as "One mans Terrorists is another mans Freedomfighter"


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## Infanteer (9 Mar 2005)

My idea is not to excuse either side.  I'm only trying to point out that this is indeed a civil war and the political rhetoric is bound to be heavy, especially considering its in a state that is run by ex-KGB types, who are famed for being defenders of freedom....


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## jmackenzie_15 (9 Mar 2005)

Good Riddance.


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## rz350 (17 Jun 2006)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060617/ap_on_re_eu/russia_chechnya

GROZNY, Russia - Special operations police killed the top Chechen rebel leader Saturday after receiving a tip about a terror attack in        Chechnya planned to coincide with the upcoming Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg. 



Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev was shot in his hometown of Argun, east of the Chechen capital, Grozny, after he resisted arrest, the town police chief said.

The killing of Sadulayev — rebel leader for just over a year — deals a blow to the Islamic-inspired insurgency and its efforts to spread beyond Chechnya's borders to attack Russian forces across the poverty-stricken and corruption-gripped south.

An intelligence agent and a police officer also were killed in the operation, according the Federal Security Service, the main KGB successor agency. NTV television reported that a rebel trying to flee with Sadulayev was killed, and two rebels escaped. Further details on the raid were not immediately available.

Clad in combat fatigues, Moscow-backed Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov and his lieutenants were shown on NTV standing over a bloodied body identified as Sadulayev's.

The prime minister said Sadulayev had been planning a terror attack in Argun during the G8 summit of leading industrialized nations in mid-July. He said a man from the rebel leader's inner circle had informed authorities on his whereabouts for $55.

"He urgently needed to buy a dose of heroin, so he sold his leader for heroin," Kadyrov with a grin. He spoke from his home village, Tsentoroi, in eastern Chechnya, where he had police bring the rebel leader's body. Kadyrov's widely feared paramilitary force is based in the village.

"The terrorists have been virtually beheaded. They have sustained a severe blow, and they are never going to recover from it," Kadyrov said. "We must decisively end international terrorism in the whole of the North Caucasus."

Sadulayev took over after Russian forces killed rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in March 2005, but he was relatively unknown outside rebel circles.

A field commander, he served as a judge of the Chechen rebels' Shariat committee — an extension of the Islamic court established under Maskhadov when he was Chechnya's elected president in the 1990s.

Chechnya's separatist movement was rooted in nationalist sentiment but in recent years has taken on a growing Islamic cast. Sadulayev, an Islamic fundamentalist, had promoted efforts to spread the rebel movement beyond the Chechen republic.

Russian prosecutors considered him the main organizer of the 2001 kidnapping of Kenneth Gluck, of New York City, who worked for        Doctors Without Borders in southern Russia. Gluck was freed after 25 days, according to a Ekho Moskvy radio report.

The radio station also said Maskhadov had called Sadulayev the co-organizer of a 2004 raid on police and security installations in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, which killed some 90 people.

In announcing the rebel leader's death, the prime minister vowed to quickly track down Shamil Basayev and Doku Umarov, the top warlords in charge of main rebel forces.

Basayev has claimed responsibility for some of Russia's worst terror attacks, including the seizure of some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater in October 2002 and the September 2004 school hostage taking in Beslan that killed 331.


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## rz350 (18 Jun 2006)

I realise I forgot to add my own commentary with the article, so Il tack it on now.

I say good riddance's to that man, one less Islamic extremist terrorist is always a good thing in my book, even if Russian forces acted in a less then upstanding way, I'd that, then have him running around taking kids hostage.


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## old medic (1 Mar 2009)

Chechnya's leader seeks to impose strict brand of Islam as he tightens his grip on power

By LYNN BERRY 
Associated Press Writer
February 28, 2009 
Copy at : http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-russia-ruling-chechnya,0,4039628.story



> GROZNY, Russia (AP) — The bullnecked president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at the mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die.
> 
> Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had "loose morals" and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.
> 
> ...


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