Moscow
Chechen warlord Shamil Baseyev appeared on a videotape this week, saying that he wanted to dispel the rumors of his death that had appeared in the Russian press. Baseyev, who lost a leg to a land mine in 2000, displayed his prosthetic limb and even stabbed it with a knife to prove his identity. He said the Chechen militants under his command were observing a cease-fire at the request of the deposed Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov. Baseyev is notorious for bloody hostage-takings. He claimed responsibility for the 2002 takeover of a Moscow theater, in which 129 hostages died, and the 2004 assault on an elementary school in Beslan, in which more than 300 children were killed, among others. The video ran this week on a Chechen separatist Web site.
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