Shakespearean plot

Khattab was ruined by the envy of his friends and the intrigues of the secret services

Chechen separatist leaders yesterday officially confirmed information about Khattab's death. The former president of Ichkeria, and now its “ambassador to the Taliban government in Afghanistan,” Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, in an interview with the Al-Jazeera television company, called the death of the field commander “a very big loss” and himself “a very big mujahideen.” At the same time, the news agency of the Chechen separatists “Kavkaz Center” on its website published a statement from the “headquarters of the Chechen Mujahideen command” about the circumstances of Khattab’s death.

As it reports, “Amir Khattab was poisoned on March 19 with the help of a letter brought to him by a messenger.” Moreover, this messenger “was known to Khattab.” The body of the “Black Arab” was immediately buried in the Chechen mountains, but information about this, as Kavkaz claims, was hidden so that the feds would not find the grave. The FSB, of course, knew about Khattab’s death, but, according to Kavkaz, it received documentary confirmation only on April 23, when Khattab’s assistant, Amir Elsi, who had a cassette recording of the funeral, was killed in a shootout with special forces.

The separatists' version almost completely coincided with what the intelligence services had previously told. According to them, several months ago Khattab stopped going on the radio, hid for a while, and maintained contact with his accomplices through letters sent by special couriers. The FSB found out about this, found an Arab in one of the CIS countries who delivered messages to the field commander, and recruited him to eliminate Khattab. One of these letters was laced with poison, which did not act immediately, which, it seems, allowed the courier to escape the attack. The FSB also noted that the operation was based on Khattab’s conflict with other Arab mercenaries, primarily Abu Al-Walid. The courier involved in the operation, apparently, was an associate of Al-Walid.

The FSB first reported about the conflict between Khattab and Abu Al-Walid last summer. As the special services assured, Al-Walid complained to the main sponsors of the Chechen militants - the leaders of the international organization "Muslim Brotherhood" - that Khattab and his associates were openly stealing money allocated for the "holy war". At the same time, the FSB then cited specific figures: how much currency each of the Khattabites pocketed. Towards the end of 2001, intelligence agencies said that Muslim Brotherhood leaders had decided to remove Khattab for embezzlement and replace him with Al-Waleed. Khattab, in turn, threatened to kill Al-Walid if he did not stop weaving intrigues. In general, it is obvious that at first the counterintelligence officers deliberately stirred up contradictions among the Arab militants, and then skillfully took advantage of the conflict. Yesterday, this was practically confirmed by the representative of the FSB Central Election Commission, Igor Shabalkin, who directly stated that Al-Walid, who would now take the place of the killed field commander, was no less interested in Khattab’s death than the federals.

The FSB also posted detailed footage of Khattab’s funeral on its website. First, his companions read a prayer over the body for a long time, simultaneously carefully filming the Arab himself from head to toe with a video camera. And then they lower the field commander into a grave in the forest at least two meters deep. However, this film, according to Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky, cannot serve as an official, procedurally proven fact of Khattab’s death, so criminal cases against the leader of the Arab mercenaries will not be closed for now. “Video filming is, of course, good,” said Mr. Fridinsky, “but we need the corpse itself.”

Last weekend, as a result of a special operation, the special services also destroyed another field commander, Shirvani Magomadov, who was considered one of the successors of “thug number one” Arbi Barayev. Along the way, federal troops launched massive airstrikes against militant bases, weapons depots, etc., located in mountainous areas. According to the special services, Maskhadov’s associate, “chief of the operational department of the armed forces of Ichkeria” Islam Khasukhanov, who was captured on April 21, showed them the location of the separatist positions.

German ALEXANDROV