Radical rebel warlord Shamil Basayev called on Chechens to recognize a field commander and former head of Chechnya's Islamic Court as their new leader following the killing of Aslan Maskhadov, according to a message posted Thursday on a rebel Web site. Basayev confirmed that under a 2002 agreement between Maskhadov and other Chechen leaders, the former court chairman, whom he called Sheikh Abdul-Khalim, was to succeed Maskhadov, the Kavkaz-Center Web site said.Maskhadov's son Anzor told The Associated Press in an interview from his home in Baku, Azerbaijan that Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev's appointment would be formally announced Thursday by Maskhadov's leading spokesman abroad, Umar Khambiyev. The Internet newspaper Gazeta.ru Web site, citing Russian special services, said Abdul-Khalim was the head of the rebels' so-called Shariat committee and a Saudi national, one of five who came to the fore of the rebel movement in summer 2002 because of their ability to bring foreign funds to Chechnya. But Anzor Maskhadov denied that, saying he was Chechen.
The new leader is little-known outside rebel circles. Ekho Moskvy radio said that Russian prosecutors considered him the main organizer of the 2001 kidnapping of American Kenneth Gluck, who worked for Doctors Without Borders in southern Russia. Gluck was freed after 25 days. The radio station said Maskhadov had called Sadulayev the co-organizer of a June 2004 raid on police and security installations in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, which killed some 90 people. It quoted the mainstream Muslim mufti of Chechnya, Akhmat-Hadji Shamayev, as calling Sadulayev Chechnya's "Wahhabi No. 1" referring to the Saudi-born, ascetic strain of Islam associated with international terror leader Osama bin Laden. That would mark a significant shift since Maskhadov was considered a relative secularist among the increasingly radical Islamic leaders of the Chechen rebel movement.