- (Bloomberg) -- An explosion in the Russian republic of
Chechnya killed President Akhmad Kadyrov, Russian President Vladimir Putin
said in televised comments at a meeting with Kadyrov's son, Ramzan Kadyrov.
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- The blast killed four and wounded 42 others, said an
official at the Emergency Situations Ministry who asked not to be named.
The blast occurred at about 10:30 a.m. local time in a stadium in Grozny
during Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of the Nazis in World
War II, the official said.
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- Kadyrov, 52, a former Muslim cleric, was elected president
of the republic on Oct. 5, 2003. Once a rebel leader who called on Chechens
to fight a holy war against the Russians, he changed sides after the first
Chechen war. The attack may undermine Putin's attempts to show that the
war in Chechnya is over.
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- "The task of the world community is to give terrorists
a fitting rebuff to rid the world of this infection," Putin said in
remarks to veterans in Moscow today, according to a statement on the Kremlin's
Web site.
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- Adlan Khasanov, 33, a journalist working for Reuters
Group Plc, was killed in the blast, Reuters said on its web site. Khuseyn
Isayev, the chairman of Chechnya's state council, was also killed, the
Interfax news service said.
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- General Valery Baranov, commander of Russian forces in
the region, was at the scene of the explosion, the official at the Emergency
Situations Ministry said. Baranov is in the emergency ward and in serious
condition, the Interfax news service said.
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- Death Toll Unclear
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- The Russian Information Agency said 4 people were killed,
Reuters news service said 14 people were killed, while Agence France-Presse
cited an unidentified Chechen official saying 32 people were killed in
the blast.
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- Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov was made acting
Chechen president, Putin said on state television.
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- "This brings to the public the fact that for all
Putin declaring that the war is over, the rebel activity has not ceased,"
Professor Margot Light of the London School of Economics said in a telephone
interview. "It is more of the same: Russian troops have been under
constant attack since this war started and so have the pro-Russian Chechens."
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- Kadyrov's Path
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- Kadyrov was elected president of the republic with 82.6
percent of the vote, in elections that were criticized by U.S. State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher at the time.
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- The bearded Kadyrov, who wore a traditional Chechen sheepskin
hat, was born in Kazakhstan, where Soviet leader Josef Stalin had deported
the Chechen people in 1944. Kadyrov's family returned to Chechnya in 1957.
He was married with four children and 13 grandchildren, according to the
Chechen government.
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- He fought against the Russians from 1994-1996 in the
first Chechen war and took part in peace negotiations that led to the end
of the first war. In 1997 and 1998, Kadyrov had a dispute with Aslan Maskhadov,
then president of Chechnya, about religious extremism in the republic.
In May 1999, five of Kadyrov's bodyguards died in an assassination attempt.
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- "Kadyrov left life on 9 May, the day of our national
holiday, the Victory Day, and he left undefeated," Putin said. "He
was a genuine and heroic person."
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- Russians celebrate Germany's unconditional surrender
in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, on May 9.
The Soviet Union lost as many as 25 million people in the war, more than
any other country and nearly half of the total of about 60 million military
and civilian deaths in the war.
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- The Russian Return
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- Russian troops returned to the Chechen republic in 1999
after Chechen rebels invaded the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan
and tried to set up an independent Islamic state. Russian authorities also
blamed Chechen rebels for a series of bombings in Russia in 1999.
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- Kadyrov refused to fight the Russians, making him the
enemy of Chechen rebels such as Shamil Basayev and a warlord known as Khattab,
who the Russians say was killed in 2002.
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- Putin's determination to invade and re-conquer Chechnya
helped boost his popularity before President Boris Yeltsin resigned in
favor of his prime minister on Dec. 31, 1999, naming Putin as acting president
and his chosen successor. Putin was elected president in March 2000.
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- Both Russians and Chechens have been criticized by groups
such as Amnesty International for human rights violations in the war.
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- A rebel group run by anti-Russia Chechen fighter Basayev
is responsible for the attack, Interfax reported, citing an unidentified
Chechen law-enforcement official. Interfax cited the person as saying several
people suspected of involvement in the attack have been detained and are
being questioned.
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- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last year named
Basayev a terrorist and a national security threat to the U.S., and moved
to block his financial assets. Basayev was wanted for organizing a theater
siege in Moscow in October 2002. Russian forces stormed the building after
using a gas to overcome the captors, ending in the death of 129 out of
800 hostages and all 41 Chechen rebels.
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