Chechen leader Maskhadov killed

Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov was killed yesterday by Russian security forces, authorities said, giving a boost to President Vladimir Putin's hardline campaign to crush the separatist rebellion in Chechnya.

The 53-year-old Maskhadov, who had battled Russian troops in his North Caucasus homeland for more than a decade, was killed in a village just north of the regional capital Grozny, security chiefs said.

Russian television showed the grey-haired Maskhadov lying, bare-chested, on his back in a pool of blood, with his arms spread out on either side. There was what appeared to be a bullet mark in his left cheek.

"A special operation was carried out by us in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt as a result of which the international terrorist and leader of the rebel group Aslan Maskhadov was killed," FSB Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev told Mr Putin.

Tolstoy-Yurt is 20 km north of Grozny.

The armed campaign which Maskhadov led had brought bombings to the very heart of Russia. But many commentators viewed him as a moderate leader and a possible negotiator with the Kremlin though this view was rejected by Moscow.

The phlegmatic Mr Putin, shown on television with Mr Patrushev, appeared to take news of Maskhadov's death calmly, telling his security chief to double-check the identity of the body.

But the demise of Maskhadov, who had a $10 million bounty on his head after being linked by Russian forces to a string of deadly rebel attacks, was welcome news for the Kremlin chief who has suffered many setbacks in pursuing a tough line in Chechnya.

Ten months ago the Kremlin-backed president of the rebel region, Akhmad Kadyrov, was assassinated in a bomb attack and a low-level war continues to take Russian and Chechen lives daily.