Chechen rebel Basayev says he directed town raid
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-17 17:01

Russia's most wanted man, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, was behind an attack last week on a town in the Caucasus that killed dozens of police and civilians, a rebel website said on Monday.

Russian authorities say they killed more than 70 militants linked to the Chechen independence cause when a small army of rebels attacked police and other strategic buildings in Nalchik, capital of Kabardino-Balkaria region, on October 13.

A total of 24 police officers and 12 civilians also died in the attack.

"The amir (leader) of the Kabardino-Balkaria sector of the Caucasus Front, Seyfullah, commanded the operation. I exercised general operational control," Basayev wrote in an email to www.kavkazcenter.com.

He said 217 fighters took part in the raid and put the number of rebel dead at 41.

Basayev organized the Beslan school siege that resulted in the death of 330 people, more than half of them children, in September 2004.

There had been rumors that Basayev, who lost a foot in a mine explosion in 2000, had been killed in the fighting in Nalchik.

The Chechen separatists' leader, Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, named Basayev his deputy in August, in a sign of the group's growing radicalism.