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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Basayev planned suicide plane attack long before 9/11 |
| 2005-06-15 |
| Chechen rebels planned to fly an airplane into the Kremlin 10 years ago, a top prosecutor said this week as Russia marked the 10th anniversary of the Shamil Basayev-led raid on Budyonnovsk where hundreds of civilians were taken hostage in June 1995. "The Prosecutor General's Office has reported that it has established the identity of 195 members of the Shamil Basayev gang, which committed the terrorist act in Budyonnovsk," the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported Wednesday. "Investigators have acquired data on 195 members of the gang. 30 were eliminated, another 20 convicted," Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said. An accomplice of the terrorists, Roza Dundayeva, testified that the gang originally intended to raid Mineralnye Vody in southern Russia but then the militants were forced to revise their plans, Shepel said. "The former head of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, Sergei Stepashin, announced that according to his information, the terrorists intended to reach Mineralnye Vody, to hijack a plane and then fly into the Kremlin." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |