Shamil Basayev threatens to blow up and fire Russia

The Chechen rebel leader threatened on Tuesday, March 30, to strike Russians outside the country to avenge the killing of a senior rebel leader in Qatar.

Shamil Basayev also said the rebels fighting for independence from Russia reserved the right to use chemical weapons, according to a letter published Tuesday on a rebel Web site.

Basayev accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ignoring Basayev's earlier call for Russian authorities to observe international law in Chechnya - specifically to end to alleged executions without trial and the disappearance of civilians - in return for an end to Chechen terrorist attacks against civilians in Russia.

Instead, Basayev charged, Russians killed rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in a February car bombing in Qatar - for which two Russian intelligence agents are in custody there awaiting trial - and continued to abduct civilians in Chechnya and the neighboring Russian region of Ingushetia.

"What Russians can do we can too," Basayev said in the letter published on the Kavkaz Center Web site, which has been a voice for his rebel camp.

"I swear to Allah, we have possibilities to destroy Russians in practically any country, but we had not carried military activities beyond the borders of Russia and today the events in Qatar will be decisive in our further activities," he wrote.

Basayev said his rebels would not touch mosques, synagogues, pagodas and churches other than Russian Orthodox ones, nursery schools, orphanages or psychiatric institutions in Russia, but he did threaten attacks within Russia.

"We will, to the extent possible, bomb, blow up, poison, set ablaze, and organize natural gas explosions and fires on everything else on Russian territory," he said.

Basayev also alleged that Russian forces were using chemical weapons and poisons against Chechens.

"That is why we reserve the right to use chemical and toxic substances and the same poisons against Russia," he said.