News arrived on my desk that Abdallah Shamil Abu Idris, the Military Amir of the Mujahideen of Caucasus, has become a Shaheed.

He's probably better known to most readers of this column as the fearless Chechen commander Shamil Basaev, loved and adored by many although the likes of Vladamir Putin have always regarded him as an enemy of Russia.

Precise details of his death are sketchy and the report before me comes from the Military Council of the State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar and it states very tersley that he died as a result of an "accidental spontaneous explosion of a cargo vehicle with explosives on July 10, 2006, in Ekazhevo village, Ingushetia".

Three other fighters also died along with the famous Chechen rebel leader. May Allah (swt) grant all of them what they deserve.

The arrival of this sad news provided one of those awful coincidences which make you shudder and reminds you of your own mortality ... you see moments earlier I had been leafing through a manuscript of his unpublished work called a Book of a Mujahiddeen when the news arrived.
The paragraph I was reading said: "A Mujahid is looking closely into a child's eyes, for they are the ones that get to see the world without sorrows. When a Mujahid wants to know whether someone beside him is trustworthy, he tries to see it with the eyes of a child."

Basaev led an admirable fight to bring independence to Chechnya and resorted to targetting Russian civilians in the latter years of his struggle to try and bring the plight of the Chechen people to the wider world.

He will probably be best remembered for masterminding the siege of the Moscow Theater and then the taking hostage of the children at a school in Beslan which sent shudders of revulsion around the world when both plans went tragically wrong.
 On both occasions there were scores and scores of civilians deaths and injuries, but the overwhelming numbers of civilian killed actually died because of the actions of Russian troops who bungled rescue raids on both operations.

No one could share the pain and loss of the Beslan parents more than Chechen mothers ... let's not forget that 42,000 Chechen children have been slaughtered in the last decade by Russian bombs and shells.

As yet, I've no further details about his death but the report says any boasts from the Kremlin that he died as a result of a Special Forces operations are simply not true. "There was not any special operation that took place. Shamil and our other brothers became Shaheeds (insha Allah) of Allah's own will (swt). The Supreme one has his own plan and decision. And about the special operation, Mujahideen will show how it should be carried out ... ", - the representative of Military Council of of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI stated.

As you can imagine Putin's military spin doctors are claiming to have wiped out a dozen fighters, including Basaev, in a special operation while one of the Ingush puppet militia blamed his death on the careless use of explosives.

Friendly fire? An own goal or a Russian military initiative? The lines are becoming blurred already and I guess there will be scores of different stories going around about how the Chechen leader expired ... or has he? Yes the conspiracy theories have just begun.

What I do know for a fact is that Putin will have cracked a smile and supporters of the mujahiddeen will believe he has become a martyr.
I also know that this grotesque war on the noble Chechens will continue and the blatant misuse of the War on Terror will continue unabated as a Kremlin device to terrorise the people of Chechnya.

His death will not stop the flow of innocent blood, and if anything times are going to get much, much worse for Chechens both home and abroad.

This is a shortened article submitted by Sister Yvonne Ridley. Readers who wish to access the full article can do so by visiting www.yvonneridley.org