Ekazhevo, Russia
Chechen militant Shamil Basayev, Russia’s most-wanted criminal, died this week in a massive explosion. He was loading dynamite onto a truck in the southern Russian province of Ingushetiya. Basayev, 41, was responsible for a series of terrorist atrocities, including the 2004 raid on a school in Beslan, where some 200 children died, and the bloody 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater. Basayev started out as a commander in the first Chechen war, but later broke with the mainstream separatist movement to conduct attacks on Russian civilians. Ingush authorities and Chechen sources said the explosion that killed Basayev was an accident; the Russian government claims it targeted the truck. “Basayev’s death is a landmark event,” Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said. “He was our bin Laden.”
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