May 18, 2004 - Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev on Monday claimed responsibility for the assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov and for the first time threatened to carry out an attack on President Vladimir Putin.
"By the mercy of Allah, the Chechen people celebrated a double holiday on May 9 -- the victory over fascism and a small but very important victory over Russia," Basayev said in a statement posted on a rebel web site.
Kadyrov's death in a bomb blast during Victory Day celebrations in Grozny was the execution of a Shariah court ruling that sentenced Kadyrov to death as a traitor for abandoning the rebels and allying with the Kremlin in 1999, Basayev said.
Basayev, taking on a mocking tone at the end of the statement, said rebels are plotting an attack against Putin.
"We are interested in who will be appointed the prime minister of Russia -- Katya or Masha -- should we, by the mercy of Allah, successfully conduct special operation Moska-2," he said, apparently referring to Putin's two daughters and the recent appointment of Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of the slain leader, as first deputy Chechen prime minister.
The Federal Security Service declined to say whether the statement would prompt any increased security measures. "We don't usually comment on [verbal] attacks," an FSB spokeswoman said.
The threat against Putin is "something new," said Svyatoslav Kaspe, chief analyst at the Russian Public Policy Center. But he dismissed it as a political stunt that won't materialize, likening it to "slinging banana skins."
Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies, agreed, saying the threat was little more than a sign of "euphoria from the success" of Kadyrov's killing in the rebel camp.
"They want to raise the stakes and show that they are capable of doing more than killing Kadyrov," he said.
The FSB is checking Basayev's claim in the killing but said it is also looking at other possible culprits, Interfax reported.
Besides the rebels, Kadyrov had plenty of enemies and rivals. Several Chechen officials have said the killing was an inside job.
In his statement, Basayev indicated that former Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov had approved the plan to assassinate Kadyrov -- which he called "Operation Revenge."
"We apologize to the president of the Chechen republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, for being unable to literally throw Kadyrov's head at his feet as we promised a month ago," Basayev said.
Maskhadov, who is widely considered a moderate in the rebel camp, denied last week that he had been involved and said he suspected the attack was staged by Russian security services "to liquidate a marionette government" unable to resolve the Chechen conflict.
Basayev's announcement would dismay Maskhadov but Basayev was apparently trying to legitimize the killing by using the name of the popularly elected rebel president, Makarkin said.
Basayev has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in Chechnya and elsewhere in Russia. Most recently, he said he had masterminded two deadly suicide attacks in December -- one on a train in the Stavropol region, which killed 46 people, and the other outside the National Hotel in Moscow, which killed six.
Meanwhile, Putin on Monday met with the Cabinet to discuss the Kremlin's new drive to rebuild Chechnya.
"We need to have an understanding of what is now the priority there," Putin said, according to Interfax.
But he rejected a proposal from Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref to halt all federally funded projects in Chechnya until they can be prioritized, saying reconstruction efforts must continue.
Gref made the proposal after a visit to Grozny over the weekend. He said Chechnya had little to show for the billions of rubles pumped in by Moscow over the past four years and suggested that federal funds had been misspent. He also said it would be easy to draw up and implement a plan to rebuild the republic.
Gref asked Putin on Monday to increase funding for restoration projects "by several times" starting in 2005. After two or three years of intensified construction, Chechnya will be able to start attracting private investments, he said.
Putin on Monday ordered the federal department overseeing reconstruction projects in Chechnya to relocate to Grozny to speed up its efforts and improve its efficiency.
He also told the Cabinet to make sure that people returning home to Chechnya promptly received previously promised compensation in cash and housing.