Basayev

Basayev is supposed to have been planning an attack in southern Russia to spoil the forthcoming G8 meeting in St Petersburg.

Shamil Basayev's death reported Helen 2006

Eventually Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, negotiating by phone with Basayev, struck a deal in which the government agreed to restart peace talks and call a ceasefire and the terrorists were allowed to escape, driving in buses to Chechnya, where the final hostages were released.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

Then Basayev was killed in Ingushetia in July 2006 when a truck filled with explosives that he was escorting detonated.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

As the defenders started reclaiming the Wahhabi villages, Basayev struck again further north, prolonging fighting for another month.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

Despite restarting hostilities, the Russians proved unprepared when a Chechen offensive in August, led by Basayev, swept back and retook Grozny.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

Shamil Basayev put a price of $100,000 on his head.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

Kazbek Basayev/Reuters SNOW CLEARING: A member of a Russian emergency services special unit fired a shell in the mountains along the Transcaucasian highway, some 68 miles from the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz, in hopes of clearing snow from the slopes to prevent avalanches along the road.

Photos of the Day 2011

The relatively moderate military commander Aslan Maskhadov won with 59.3 percent of the vote, far ahead of Basayev, with 23.5 percent, and Yandarbiev, with 10.1 percent.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

Shamil Basayev, eleven of whose relatives had just been killed by Russian bombs, led a gang of fighters into Stavropol in June 1995.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

Basayev, with his 148 commandos, shot his way into the nearby town of Budyonnovsk, raised a Chechen flag above the telephone exchange, and took some 1,200 hostages, herding them into the hospital.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011