The rebel warlord who masterminded the Beslan school siege says Chechen attacks on civilians will go on as long as Russian troops abuse human rights in the separatist region of Chechnya.
Shamil Basayev, who has a multimillion-dollar bounty on his head, said in an interview published on Sunday that capturing rebel leaders such as him would not help Russia to victory since Chechen rebels operated in small independent groups.
Basayev has ordered the most audacious attacks on Russia in the 10 years of the Chechen war. His fighters held the school in Beslan with 1200 hostages for more than two days in early September before Russian security forces stormed the building. More than 330 hostages died, about half of them children.
He was a key commander in defending Chechnya when Vladimir Putin, then prime minister and now President, sent troops back into Chechnya in 1999, but his willingness to attack civilians has split his forces from those of the nominal rebel head, Aslan Maskhadov.
"If Putin begins to abide by international law, then automatically we will do so," he said in remarks carried on rebel websites.
"We are ready to abide by international law; this would even suit us by protecting civilians. But unlike President Maskhadov, we do not want to fight in such a way unilaterally."
Troops die daily in clashes with rebel forces. Activists accuse Russian forces of great rights abuses in kidnapping and murdering Chechens suspected of links to the rebels. Russia denies this.
A manhunt for the top leaders has been fruitless, and Basayev said his capture would not halt the war anyway.
"Our warriors are self-sufficient; they fight independently; no one needs to teach them anything. I just need to send letters and my personal participation is not needed; it is enough to meet once or twice a year."
A car bomb exploded outside the main hospital in the Chechen capital, Grozny, on Sunday, injuring 17 people in an attack that apparently targeted members of a Chechen security force bringing their wounded for treatment after an earlier explosion on a highway on the city's outskirts.
