Chechen independence fighters who have been battling Russian troops in the small mountainous Republic for decades confirmed on Monday, July 10, the death of their top leader Shamil Basayev.

THE REPRESENTATIVE of the Military Council of State Defence Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar reported to a Chechen news agency that the Military Amir of Mujahideen of Caucasus, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris became a Shaheed (insha Allah).

The Chechen commander died as a result of an accidental spontaneous explosion of a truck, loaded with explosives in the region of the village Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Three other independence fighters also became Shaheeds together with him.

The representative of Military Council has not reported any other details. At the same time he denied all claims made by the Russians about a “special operation” against Shamil Basayev. “There was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds according to Allah’s (swt) will. The Supreme one has his own plan and decision."

The representative of Ingush militia claimed that three of the four fighters have been unidentified and one of them is probably Shamil Basayev.

The reason for the explosion was a careless use of an explosive. Chechnya has been ravaged by conflict since 1994, with just three years of relative peace after the first war between the Russian forces and Chechen fighters ended in August 1996 and the second broke out in October 1999.

Shamil Basayev - A key figure

BASAYEV WAS at the core of the fierce independence fight in Chechnya. Born in 1965, he was raised in Dyshne-Vedeno, a Chechen village at the heart of a territory with a tradition of opposition to Moscow. He was brought up by the generation of Chechens who had just returned to their homeland after being exiled by Russian dictator Josef Stalin to Kazakhstan and Siberia.

Basayev was a talented footballer who studied at an engineering institute in Moscow and at an Islamic institute in Istanbul. He repeatedly boasted that his ancestors fought alongside Imam Shamil, the legendary 19th century resistance warrior.

He was widely regarded as an exceptional and fearless military commander whose rag-tag forces inflicted major defeats on the Russian army in Grozny and the Caucasus mountains.

In the first Chechen war, Basayev emerged as the most effective field commander. He was also the principal commander in the recapture of Grozny in August 1996 – one of the biggest humiliations the modern Russian military has faced.

He led some of the most spectacular military operations against Russian forces, but was recently criticised for a series of hostage-takings, which ended in civilian bloodbaths. Basayev, who lost 11 relatives in a Russian air attack on Vedeno in 1995, insisted that the devastation wreaked by Russia’s military campaigns on the Chechen people justified attacks on Russian civilians.

At least 100,000 civilians – about 10 percent of the population – are estimated to have been killed in both wars, but human rights groups have said the real numbers could be much higher.