Former Chechen Leader Assassinated in Qatar

[AYOUB]

Car bomb kills Islamic rebel chief

By Paul Colquhoun in Doha

14 February 2004

 

 

A former president of the rebel republic of Chechnya, one of Russia's most-wanted Islamic militants, was assassinated in Qatar yesterday.

 

Zemlikhan Yandarbiyev, 51, was fatally injured and two bodyguards were killed when their vehicle exploded near a mosque where they had just been praying in a deserted part of Dafna, a quiet residential district in the Qatari capital, Doha. Mr Yandarbiyev's 13-year-old son suffered severe burns and was said to be critically ill.

 

Although the authorities quickly removed the wreckage and washed down the road, charring from the blast was visible over a wide area.

 

One bystander claimed a grenade was thrown into the car, a four-wheel-drive, but others suggested a bomb had been detonated by remote control from a vehicle trailing the Chechens' car. The explosion happened in an open area, suggesting that it was timed to avoid harming anyone else.

 

Moscow has repeatedly requested Mr Yandarbiyev's extradition from the Gulf state over the past 16 months, accusing him of organising Chechen guerrilla operations, including the Moscow theatre hostage-taking in October 2002, and of acting as a important fund-raiser for Muslim militants in the rebellious republic.

 

The attack was the first political assassination in Qatar, a rich natural gas and oil producer, which prides itself on having one of the world's lowest crime rates.

 

It came just weeks after unidentified European non-Muslims caused outrage by entering a mosque during Friday prayers and videotaping the worshippers, who included the Chechens. Police were called and reportedly took suspects for questioning. No official statement was made.

 

The Chechen leader's presence in Doha, where he took refuge three years ago, has caused friction between the Qatari authorities and the Russians, diplomats said. The Qataris, who have no extradition treaty with Russia, have repeatedly ignored Moscow's appeals.

 

Last May, Amnesty International issued a special alert urging supporters to petition Qatar against granting Russia's extradition request, saying Mr Yandarbiyev could be tortured if he was handed over.

 

The Russians claim to have intercepted a telephone conversation between Mr Yandarbiyev and the leader of the Chechen hostage-takers during the Nord-Ost theatre siege, which ended in the death of 129 people, most of them from the effects of sleeping gas used by Russian special forces when they stormed the building. But the tape they produced only demonstrated that Mr Yandarbiyev was seeking information about events, it did not prove he was directing them.

 

Mr Yandarbiyev has also been accused of complicity in Chechen raids into neighbouring Dagestan in 1999, which led to renewed Russian military intervention in Chechnya and the continuing Chechen war.

 

In October last year, Moscow persuaded the EU to include him on its list of terrorists.

 

Mr Yandarbiyev took over as acting president of Chechnya in April 1996, after his predecessor Dzhokar Dudayev was assassinated with a missile that homed on his mobile phone. He quickly negotiated a peace deal with Russia's President, Boris Yeltsin, which gave the republic broad autonomy. He organised elections which were held the following year, and stepped down after being defeated at the polls by Aslan Maskhadov.

 

Qatar is where the US Central Command has its Gulf headquarters, but the country has also provided haven for several leading Muslim militants, including Palestinian radicals exiled from Jordan and an Islamist leader from Algeria. The policy of offering refuge to radical Islamists may be intended, at least in part, to deflect criticism of the government's policy of strengthening military and academic links with the West.

 

Militants are generally not allowed to engage in political activities if they have been given asylum by Qatar.

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Putin gets blame for Qatar hit

 

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow

Sunday February 15, 2004

The Observer

 

Russia's intelligence services were yesterday drawn into a growing scandal over the assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, a leading Chechen separatist and alleged terrorism financier, as it emerged that his Toyota Landcruiser was torn to shreds in Qatar by a sophisticated booby trap operated by remote control.

Local media in Doha, the capital, reported that Yandarbiyev's jeep had been booby-trapped before it drove him, his two bodyguards and 13-year-old son, Daud, home after Friday prayers. The bomb was detonated 300 metres away from the mosque. Yandarbiyev died from his wounds in hospital last Friday.

 

Russia's security services, the FSB, have long sought the extradition of Yandarbiyev from Qatar, where they claim he was being sheltered in a diplomatic compound under police protection. Qatar has denied all links to terrorism. The FSB accused him of helping to finance terrorist acts, including the Nord Ost theatre siege in which 40 Chechen gunmen held 800 Muscovites hostage.

 

'During the siege Yandarbiyev called the gunmen's leader, Mosvar Barayev, directly,' a senior FSB source said. 'Yandarbiyev cannot afford to finance anything himself, but some of the money from al-Qaeda sponsors came to [accounts in] his name and he gave it out.'

 

The assassination came a week after a suicide bomber killed 41 Moscow commuters on a Metro train. As the bomb went off, Kremlin hardliner Viktor Ivanov, a former KGB officer, was giving a rare public speech to police chiefs demanding tougher action against those who finance terrorism.

 

Chechen rebel websites have blamed Russian special services for the blast, as did much of the Russian media yesterday, despite repeated denials.

 

The SVR, Russia's equivalent of MI6, said that it had not killed anybody abroad since 1959, while the FSB said the blast was probably the result of an internal Chechen dispute over money.

 

None the less, the blast sent a clear signal to those in the Gulf who are believed to be sponsoring Chechen extremists. If Moscow did have a hand in the bomb, it would mark an escalation in Russia's war on terrorism.

 

The newspaper Kommersant drew parallels between the Doha blast and the way Israel's Mossad operates, yet concluded that the Russian secret services had the strongest motive. Israel and Russia have a history of co-operation in security operations.

 

'A targeted hit such as that sounds like an Israeli job,' said one security analyst who is familiar with foreign intelligence operations. 'But there is no reason why it would not be the Russians. They are more likely to use proxies than do the job on the ground themselves. It is a pretty hardcore operation.'

 

He added that such an operation would probably not have been performed in the tranquil US-backed state - where the Pentagon has a long-established military presence - without some level of consent from Washington.

 

President Vladimir Putin and President George Bush spoke hours after the Metro blast and agreed to intensify their mutual fight against terrorism, according to the Kremlin press service.

[N.O.R.F]

wudnt surprise me if the Qatari govnt santioned it,,,, :rolleyes: , ie the scene was wiped clean very quickly leaving no time for any sort of investigation, it happened at a quiet time in the day on a quiete street, coincidence??

 

alahay haunaxaristo, ameen