Russian Payback
Russian security forces finally caught up with the terrorist who was behind both the Moscow theater attack and the attack on a school in Beslan where 331 people died. Half of those killed were children. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev was killed along with other Chechen terrorists by Russian special forces.
FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev said on Monday that Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school attack in which 331 people, half of them children, were killed, was planning an attack to coincide with Russia hosting the G8 summit of world leaders this weekend.
CNN's Matthew Chance said the killing was a massive victory for the security services and a huge blow for the rebel leadership.
Basayev, together with other Chechen fighters, was killed in Ingushetia, a region neighboring Chechnya, where rebels are battling for independence.
In a televised meeting with Patrushev, Putin described Basayev's death as "deserved retribution" for Beslan and other attacks.
"This is retaliation he deserves for killing our children in Beslan, Budennovsk, all the terrorist acts his bandits perpetrated in Moscow and other regions of Russia, including Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic," Patrushev said, according to an Interfax report.
A statement on website www.kavkazcenter.com said the Chechen rebel leadership was not making any comment yet, Reuters news agency said.
The U.N. Security Council put Basayev on its official terrorist list last year after Washington classified him as a threat to the United States.
The FSB had stepped up the pressure on the country's most wanted man by announcing a $10 million reward for information leading to the "neutralization" of him and separatist former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov said in 2004.
A truly evil man. Retribution did not come soon enough for him, but it came nonetheless. Anyone else notice this:
CNN's Matthew Chance said the killing was a massive victory for the security services and a huge blow for the rebel leadership.
What, no second guessing? No airing of unsubstantiated accusations that Russian forces somehow did some horrible action? No blaming it on the administration?
Why is that?
