(Washington Post) Former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, 51, who died Feb. 13 in a car-bombing in the Qatari capital Doha, had been near the top of Russia's most-wanted list for years, and Moscow had long fumed about Qatar's refusal to turn him over. Yandarbiyev served briefly as acting president of the Chechen republic after his predecessor, Dzhokhar Dudayev, was killed in 1996 by a Russian missile that homed in on his satellite telephone. When the second Chechen war started in 1999, Yandarbiyev soon left and moved to Qatar, where Russian officials and independent analysts said he served as the rebels' chief Middle East fundraiser.
2004-02-27 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive