Breaking News: BBC~~~Bounty offered for Chechen rebels
Last Updated: Wednesday, 8 September, 2004, 08:20 GMT 09:20 UK
news.bbc.co.uk
Russia has offered 300m roubles ($10m) for information leading to the arrest of Chechen rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, reports say.
Security services want any information that could help to "neutralise" the two following the Beslan school siege, Russian news agencies report.
In Beslan, residents are preparing to bury more of the 335 people, including children, killed in the siege.
Dramatic video footage shot inside the school has been shown on Russian TV.
'Inhuman acts'
The two rebel leaders named by the Federal Security Bureau have been wanted by Russian authorities for years in connection with various attacks in Russia.
"For many years Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, the leaders of illegal armed groups, staged inhuman acts of terrorism on the territory of the Russian Federation, which involved a tremendous loss of life," the security services said.
They called "for the information on their whereabouts, which could help neutralise those criminals. Anonymity and security are guaranteed".
Chechen rebel spokesman Akhmed Zakayev had previously said the rebels had no part in the "barbaric act of terrorism".
He blamed the attack on "local radical groups" and warned that President Putin's "punitive policy" in the region would make a "repeat of the Beslan tragedy inevitable". |
