At least 22 Chechen rebels were killed by Russian troops in the separatist republic, including a man officials say was linked to the assassination of Chechnya's pro-Moscow president Akhmad Kadyrov. Ramzan Kadyrov, the killed leader's son, said elite troops had infiltrated a rebel base in Chechnya's turbulent Vedensky district and killed 22 militants in a brief gun battle, the Interfax news agency reported. "Emir Suleiman, or Khairulla, was among the dead, the man who publicly claimed responsibility for the act of terror that took place on May 9 in Grozny," and that took the life of his father, Interfax quoted Kadyrov as saying Monday. Russia's NTV channel showed pictures of scorched bodies, some clad in camouflage gear and some still clinging to their AK-47s, piled in front of a brick building, with Russian soldiers silently picking over them. "We know that Basayev's closest allies have been killed," Ruslan Alkhanov, Chechnya's acting interior minister, said in remarks shown on NTV.