The Hindu : International : Basayev owns up Beslan school siege

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Saturday, Sep 18, 2004

International

International

Basayev owns up Beslan school siege

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, SEPT. 17. The Chechen militant leader, Shamil Basayev, has formally taken responsibility for a recent spate of terrorist attacks in Russia that claimed over 440 lives.

In a letter posted on a Chechen rebel web site on Friday, Mr. Basayev said his "Shahid Brigade Riadus-Salahina" had carried out all the four terror attacks that took place in Russia in August and September: the bombing of a bus stop in Moscow on August 24, the simultaneous downing of two airliners on the same day, a suicide bomb attack near a Moscow metro station on August 31 and the seizure of a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, on September 1.

Russian authorities had earlier blamed Mr. Basayev and the Chechen separatist leader, Aslan Maskhadov, for the attacks. Mr. Maskhadov had denied any involvement.

Chechen demands

Mr. Basayev said the hostage-takers had demanded that Russia immediately stop the war in Chechnya and begin to pull its troops out of the republic. If not, they demanded the Russian President, Vladimir Putin's "immediate resignation as President."

Mr. Basayev denied knowing the Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, or receiving any money from him. "I would not refuse such money though," he added.

Meanwhile, Russian forces in Chechnya arrested an Arab mercenary as he was trying to cross the Russian border. The 46-year-old Algerian, Kamal Burahlya, was a bomb expert helping Mr. Basayev carry out terror attacks, a military spokesman in Chechnya said. He said the man had lived for 10 years in Britain and had a British residence permit.

`Double standards'

Mr. Putin today again accused the West of double standards on terrorism. "We can defeat terrorism only if we pull the efforts of the entire world community," the Russian leader said, addressing an international mayors' conference in Moscow.

Mr. Putin compared the West's policy of double standards in differentiating between `good' and `bad', `moderate' and `radical' terrorists to the 1938 Munich pact under which Britain and France agreed to Hitler's occupation of a part of Czechoslovakia.

"One should not believe that by appeasing terrorists one can strike a bargain with them and win immunity to attacks," the Russian President said.

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