Moscow: Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for Russia's worst terrorist attacks, was killed on Monday, Russia's top intelligence official said.
Federal Security Service head Nikolai Patrushev told President Vladimir Putin that Basayev had been killed overnight in Ingushetia - a republic bordering Chechnya that was plagued by sporadic spillover violence from the separatist region.
Patrushev's meeting with Putin was shown on Russian state television.
Basayev, 41, claimed responsibility for some of Russia's worst terror attacks, including the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002 in which dozens of hostages and militants died, the 2004 school hostage taking in Beslan that killed 331, and the seizure of about 1,000 hostages at a hospital in Budyonnovsk that killed about 100.
An Ingush regional Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Basayev had been killed while accompanying a truck filled with 220 pounds of dynamite that blew up in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo early on Monday.
Basayev was among four militants killed in the blast, which authorities earlier said had occurred inadvertently during a special police operation against rebels preparing an attack later on Monday.
The Interfax news agency, citing Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev, said Basayev's body had been identified "through some of the fragments, including his head."
Patrushev told Putin that the Chechen rebels had hoped to "put political pressure on the Russian leadership" during the Group of Eight summit later this week, which Putin is chairing.
Patrushev said the operation to eliminate Basayev, in which many other rebels were killed, was thanks to intelligence operations abroad, "especially in those countries where arms were collected."
Rebel-connected websites did not immediately comment on Patrushev's claim.
Putin called Basayev's killing "deserved retribution" for terrorist attacks in Beslan and Budyonnovsk, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.
The attack on the Beslan school shocked Russia and divided the rebel movement, since civilians, including women and children, were taken hostage.
Basayev was the most notorious of the Chechen warlords, eluding Russian forces for years despite Kremlin vows to hunt him down and an offer of $10 million and plastic surgery to anyone providing information leading to his death
His grim, decade-long record of killing both civilians and soldiers reflected fanatical determination - a ferocity Russia long claimed was bolstered by help from international terrorist networks such as al-Qaida.
Washington declared Basayev a terrorist and threat to the United States.
Basayev began his campaign even before the Soviet Union's demise - starting with the hijack of an airliner in 1991 - to attract interest in the separatist cause of Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region in the Caucasus Mountains.
After Russian forces entered Chechnya in 1994, his exploits became more prominent.
Basayev's forces buried a container of radioactive material in a Moscow park in 1995 - a warning of the mayhem they could inflict if they chose.
The Budyonnovsk hospital raid brought Basayev fame back home.
When Russian troops pulled out in 1996 and Chechnya prepared to elect a president to lead it to de facto independence, Basayev ran for the job.
He lost to the late rebel commander Aslan Maskhadov and became his deputy.
He appeared at first to be trying to change from combatant to politician, trimming his flowing beard and trading his camouflage fatigues for a suit.
Alu Alkhanov, president of the Kremlin-backed government in Chechnya, said Basayev's killing likely would undermine the Chechen rebel movement irreparably.
"I consider that today can be considered the date of the logical end of the fight against illegal armed formations," he said, according to Interfax.
Another rebel leader, Doku Umarov, pledged last month that rebels would step up their attacks against Russian forces.
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