Chechen Fighters' Web Site Confirms Khatab's Death But Pro-Moscow Chechen's Doubt It

28/04/2002| IslamWeb

HIGHLIGHTS: Russian TV Promises More Footage.
Pro-Moscow Official Warns of a Fake Death.
If Confirmed Beyond Doubt, Khattab's Death Could Undermine Resistance.
Nine Russians Killed in Resistance Operations Over Past 24 hours.

STORYPro-Moscow Chechens have disputed a Russian report that one Chechnya's most powerful warlords, Khattab, has been killed and is now dead despite a video footage aired by Russian state television showing what it says is Khatab's dead body.

On Friday, Russian state channel RTR showed footage of a body, with a thick black beard and shoulder-length black hair, that strongly resembled Khattab. It was first shown in a dimly lit interior and then laid outside.

The channel promised to show more footage of the corpse Sunday, including video of Khattab's burial.

Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, said that Khattab had been killed in a special operation in the mountains of southern Chechnya in late March. There was no indepedent confirmation of the report.

DID KHATAB FAKE HIS OWN DEATH?

Despite confirmation carried by the Chechen Nationalist Fighters' web site that Khattab is dead, Akhmad Kadyrov, the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Chechnya, said, "I will believe in the death of that person only after seeing the body myself." His remarks were aired by the Interfax news agency.

Kadyrov said the body had not been formally identified, and warned that a number of Chechen warlords, including Khattab, had been known to fake their deaths to escape the attention of Russian security services.

Chechen nationalists have said Khattab is still alive.

The Jordanian-born Khattab, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan, emerged as a key Resistance leader in Chechnya, after Russian troops pulled out from their first military campaign in 1996.

Russian officials say he helped launch an invasion of the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan in 1999. That incursion, and a series of apartment house bombings in Russia, prompted the Kremlin to send troops back to Chechnya later that year.

KHATAB'S DEATH IF CONFIRMED BEYOND DOUBT WOULD LEAD TO RESISTANCE DISINTEGRATION

Ilya Shabalkin, an FSB spokesman in Chechnya, expressed confidence that Khattab's death would cut off foreign financing to Chechen nationalists groups and speed their disintegration.

Russian officials say Khattab helped funnel money from Islamic militants to the Chechen nationalist fighters, and the U.S. officials say Khattab and the other main Chechen warlord, Shamil Basayev, have ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

On Saturday, the FSB said it captured Lema Saiyev, an alleged member of the Basayev-led group that carried out a notorious hostage raid on the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk seven years ago, the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported.

A Russian court has already sentenced 10 alleged members of the group to prison terms of 11 to 15 years. Basayev himself remains at large.

At least 100 people were killed in clashes when Basayev and the other gunmen took 1,000 civilians hostage at a hospital and later used some of them as human shields to escape back into Chechnya.

CHECHEN WAR FAR FROM OVER

Elsewhere in Chechnya, at least nine Russian troops, two policemen and two nationalist fighters were killed in attacks and mine explosions over the past 24 hours, according to an official in the Moscow-backed administration in Grozny.

For the second day in a row, Russian warplanes struck at targets in the Vedeno region, and Russian artillery rained down on four different districts. Russian authorities also rounded up more than 90 people suspected of rebel ties during security sweeps through Chechnya, the official said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Arab-Chechen commander Al-Khattab poses in his staff quarters in Vedeno, 28 miles (45 kms) south of Grozny, Dec. 14, 1999. A Federal Security Services spokesman was quoted by the Interfax news agency Thursday April 25, 2002, as saying Khattab was killed in an operation by Russian forces in Chechnya in March. (AP Photo)