Chechnya's rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov said yesterday that warlord Shamil Basayev would be put on trial for masterminding the hostage siege in Beslan which killed more than 330 people, once fighting has stopped in the breakaway republic.
"I responsibly announce that after the end of the war, individuals guilty of conducting illegal acts, including Shamil Basayev, will be passed to a court of law," said Aslan Maskhadov in a statement on a rebel Web site -- www.chechenpress.com -- reacting to Basayev's claim to have masterminded the raid in Beslan.
Maskhadov appeared to be suggesting he would punish Basayev under Islamic Shariah law which he introduced when he was president of a de facto independent Chechnya for more than two years in the late 1990s.
"I announce that the leadership of the Chechen Republic and the armed forces under my control ... had nothing to do with this terrorist act," Maskhadov's statement said.
"But I have to point out that such acts [as Beslan] are a consequence and response to the genocidal war waged by the Russian leadership against the Chechen people, in which the Russian army has killed 250,000 people, including 42,000 children," he said.
Despite Maskhadov's statement denying any link with the Beslan attack, Russian officials have put a US$10 million bounty on both him and Basayev and continued yesterday to assert the two had been hand-in-glove in the bloody operation.
"The organization of this criminal act against little children, teenagers and their parents in Beslan was organized by Maskhadov and Basayev in close cooperation," said army spokesman Ilya Shabalkin in a statement.
Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, admitted early this month to staging the Beslan operation and a string of other attacks including the blowing up of two passenger planes that killed 90 people. He warned Moscow his forces would strike again.
Maskhadov has condemned Basayev before and broke with him in October 2002 when the warlord organized the seizure of a Moscow theater in a raid in which 129 hostages were killed.
But the two men had seemed to be uniting their efforts this year. Maskhadov's strong condemnation yesterday could weaken the rebel forces who are now more active than they have been for years.
Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen fired grenade launchers and automatic weapons yesterday at a Russian hospital treating children injured in the Beslan seige.
No one was harmed in the night-time attack directed at the intensive care unit of the hospital in the city of Rostov-on-Don, news agencies reported.
Police said the intended target may have been a local businessman housed in the unit rather than children from Beslan being treated in a separate burns ward.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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