Former Chechen rebel leader killed for $200,000
Текст: Ilya Zhegulev Фото: CI
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the former president of the self-styled Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, was buried before sunset on Saturday at the Al-Rayan royal cemetery in Doha. The Chechen was killed in a blast as he and his teenage son were returning from noon prayers on Friday. Local media have already described the incident as score-settling by the Kremlin. The Russian side, however, denied its involvement.
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, 51, died in hospital on Friday after his jeep was hit by a blast in Doha, the capital of Qatar. His son, Daoud, 13, was badly injured and hospitalized with extensive burns. Yandarbiyev and his son had just left a mosque in Doha when the blast occurred, a hospital spokesman told the press.
Yandarbiyev was buried on Saturday in Qatar where he had lived in exile for over three years at the Al-Rayan cemetery, normally reserved for the ruling Al Thani family. Some 700 mourners, mostly Qataris, including a state minister, a cousin of the Qatar leader, and one of the top Islamic leaders of Algeria attended the funeral.
The Qatari authorities have launched an investigation into the Chechen s murder. It has already been established that Yandarbiyev s Toyota Land Cruiser hit a mine detonated by remote control. So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. Yandarbiyev s supporters and Chechen separatists, however, laid the blame on the Kremlin, at the same time not ruling out the possible involvement of the US.
Movladi Udugov, a separatist spokesman, told a pro-rebel web site that US involvement in the murder of the former Chechen president ''cannot be ruled out''. The US has aligned terror with Islam, he said, attacking what he described as lies told about the Chechen people. Yandarbiyev died because he was a threat, Udugov added, hailing him as a man who devoted himself to fighting for the freedom of the Chechen people.
Delivering the funeral oration, Sheik Ali Quradaghi said Yandarbiyev was a role model and ''a holy warrior for the sake of God, and part of the struggle for the Chechen people. The Chechens will not be intimidated by this cowardly act,'' Quradaghi said. He did not openly blame Russia for the assassination, but he said the Russians had ''displaced our Chechen brothers''. ''Just like the Soviet Union was defeated, so will Russia,'' he added.
Pro-Moscow Chechens in Russia had no sympathy for Yandarbiyev. Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov condemned him as the chief ideologist of the separatists and a ''terrorist''. ''You will find no one (in Chechnya) who will regret what happened to Yandarbiyev,'' Kadyrov, elected in polls organised by Moscow last year, told Interfax.
Acting Chechen Prime Minister Eli Isayev said Yandarbiyev's assassination ''confirms once again the common truth that any criminal, especially of such a rank, will sooner or later receive their punishment. Yandarbiyev got his in Qatar.''
Aide to Yandarbiyev, Ibrahim Gabi, blamed the Kremlin and Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, for Yandarbiyev's killing. However, Russian special services strongly denied their alleged involvement. Ilya Shabalkin, chief spokesman for the anti-rebel operations headquarters in the Northern Caucasus, linked the Chechen s murder to a financial dispute between him and his ''accomplices'' in Azerbaijan.
In comments for Interfax, Shabalkin said that according to FSB sources, Yandarbiyev had attempted to launch a publishing business in Baku, seeking to publish anti-Russian books there. But the project proved unsuccessful, and by the beginning of this year his Baku publishers reported losses of $200,000.
Yandarbiyev then allegedly asked several Muslim organisations to help him pay off the debt, but his Baku partners never received any of the money he managed to raise. Russian special services assume he misappropriated the sum.
Vladmir Zhirinovsky, leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, is convinced that Moscow was involved in the attack. Moreover, Zhirinovsky said, the separatist leader was exterminated ''resulting from a joint operation of special services of several countries, including Qatar''.
Yandarbiyev, living in exile in Doha for more than three years, was the first Chechen separatist to be added, at Russia's request last year, to a U.N. list of groups and people with suspected ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.
Yandarbiyev served as acting president of Chechnya in 1996-97. He became one of the most prominent proponents of radical Islam among the Chechen rebels. During the hard-line Islamic rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Yandarbiyev opened a Chechen Embassy in Kabul, and a consulate in the southern city of Kandahar. 16 ФЕВРАЛЯ 12:35