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Representative of Maskhadov, Akhmed
Zakayev
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MOSCOW,
October 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – News conflicted
Friday, October 25, about the role played by Chechen separatist
President Aslan Maskhadov in the three-day long Moscow hostage-taking
tragedy.
Russia,
for its part, accused Maskhadov of personally organizing the
hostage-taking, in which Chechen commandos seized more than 700
civilians, an accusation denied by Maskhadov's spokesman, according to
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Russian
deputy Interior Minister Vasily Vasilyev blamed Maskhadov for the
raid, adding that his allegations were based on the hostage-takers'
comments to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network.
"It
was Maskhadov who organized this operation," Vasilyev told
reporters.
On
a videotape broadcast by the Arab-language television network, the
hostage-takers said they were acting "under orders from the
Chechen republic's military commander".
However,
a top aide to Maskhadov said Chechen rebel leaders had not known that
Chechen separatists were planning the attack and that they condemned
it.
Maskhadov
"categorically condemns this terrorist act", his spokesman,
Akhmed Zakayev, said in a Radio Free Europe interview.
"The
official authority of Chechnya was not aware" the attack was
being prepared, Zakayev added.
"I
tell you officially that Chechnya's state committee of defense did not
decide to carry out military action on the territory of the
enemy," he said.
The
rebel leadership was "prepared to help the hostages if the
Russian government asks us", Zakayev went on.
“The
gunmen, holding hundreds of people in a Moscow theatre, are not
officially connected to us, but are desperate people who have lost
their families”, he added.
Maskhadov
has in the past urged separatists to restrict their struggle to
Chechen territory.
But,
in Moscow the leader of the Chechen hostage-takers, Movsar Barayev,
told a western journalist he was acting on the orders of Maskhadov and
top field commander Shamil Basayev.
"Barayev
said it was a joint action of Maskhadov and Basayev, that they were
under their orders," said British Sunday Times journalist Mark
Franchetti, who met overnight with the Chechen commandos.
Franchetti
said the guerrillas old him "they do not intend to go anywhere,
with hostages or without them, until there are changes in
Chechnya".
"They
have fulfilled their task. Now it is up to Putin to decide," he
said.
They
stormed into the packed theatre Wednesday evening, October 23, taking
the audience and cast hostage, and are threatening to start shooting
their captives early Saturday, October 26, unless Russia ends its war
against separatist rebels in their breakaway Caucasian republic.
Barayev
is the nephew of slain rebel warlord Arbi Barayev, who was killed in
June 2001 by Russian troops.
Maskhadov
had long distanced himself from Arbi Barayev. Relations between the
two men became strained after Maskhadov demoted Arbi Barayev from
general to a simple soldier.
Moscow
has not recognized Maskhadov as Chechnya's legitimate President since
it launched a massive anti-insurgency campaign in Chechnya in October
1999 and has blurred, if not outright ignored, the distinction between
the elected President and the separatist extremists.
Since the beginning of the military intervention, the Kremlin has
insisted that Chechen separatists are terrorists and, since the
September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, Moscow claimed
they have links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
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