Russia Kills Al-Qaeda Operative

Russia's FSB says it kills Al-Qaeda operative
Agence France Presse -- English - February 21, 2005

MOSCOW Feb 21 - Russia's FSB intelligence service said Monday it had killed an Al-Qaeda operative of Kuwaiti origin who was based in the Russian republic of Ingushetia and who was involved in organizing attacks in Russia's north Caucasus region, Russian media reported.

An FSB spokesman gave the suspect's name as Abu Dzeit and said he was a citizen of Kuwait who had taken part in planning for the Beslan attack that resulted in the deaths of 344 people, half of them schoolchildren, as well as a massive raid in Ingushetia that killed around 90 last June.

"We know he was trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, after which he was sent to Bosnia, where he committed a series of terrorist acts and later to the north Caucasus where he was Al-Qaeda's representative in Ingushetia," FSB spokesman Sergei Ignachenko told state television.

The state-run Channel One network showed photographs of a bearded man of Arab appearance dressed in military fatigues in the company of Shamil Basayev, the feared Chechen rebel warlord and Russia's most wanted man.

The reports did not provide details on the circumstances of Dzeit's death.

Since 1999 when Moscow launched its second war in Chechnya in a decade, the Russian leadership has described its military action there as a fight against against international terrorism.

February 21, 2005 Monday 1:15 PM GMT