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| Caucasus |
| Russers say they've iced Khattab in Chechnya |
| 2002-04-27 |
| Russia's security service, the FSB, claims that Russian troops have succeeded in killing a leading rebel warlord in Chechnya. It said a successful assassination mission against Jordanian-born Omar Ibn al Khattab had been carried out in March. Khattab has been high on Moscow's wanted list in Chechnya since the start of the current Chechen war in 1999. The US also believes Khattab may have links to al-Qaeda. However, Mairbek Vachagayev, spokesmen for the Chechen rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, said Khattab was still alive and dismissed the Russian announcement as a propaganda trick. "I think the Federal Security Service is at a loss as to where he may be and is trying to trick him out into the open," Mr Vachagayev told Ekho Moskvy radio. Maskhadov sez he's alive, the FSB sez he's dead... And Khattab says nothing. Kavkaz.org reports that Russian state-run television (RTR) showed a video of a dead man that very much-resembled Chechen Commander Amir Khattab. Let us remind that earlier the Chechen side refuted the report about his death. Besides that, this Friday a source from President Maskhdov's circle told a Kavkaz-Center correspondent that some time ago Maskhadov and Khattab have met and held a session. The source was reporting that the meeting took place last week. After the film was shown on the Russian channel, we asked the source to specify when exactly the meeting of President Maskhadov and Amir Khattab took place. The source reported that the meeting was held on April 12-13 in one of the Southern regions of the country on a secret base of the Chechen Armed Forces. Along with that, the dates of March 19-20 were shown on the screen.Looked like him. Looked pretty dead, too... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |