Kremlin vows to 'wipe out' Chechnya's elected leader

The Kremlin signalled a hard line against the breakaway republic of Chechnya yesterday, with a senior official saying Moscow intended to "wipe out" rebel commanders, including the elected President, Aslan Maskhadov.

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the official Kremlin spokesman, said last week's siege of a crowded theatre in central Moscow by 50 Chechen fighters proved the rebel movement led by Mr Maskhadov had been hopelessly contaminated by terrorism.

Russian officials played crackly tapes of intercepted telephone conversations for journalists as part of a Kremlin effort to prove that the Chechen President was behind the hostage crisis.

In one of the Chechen- language calls, played with a voiced-over Russian translation, a man identified as the attackers' leader, Movsar Barayev, said "Shamil," meaning the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, was present during preparations for the hostage-taking raid. "Shamil was acting on Aslan's instructions," the voice said.

Mr Yastrzhembsky said: "There was other clear evidence that Mr Maskhadov was fully aware of the developments and the people in the auditorium acted with his knowledge." He offered no further proof of Mr Maskhadov's involvement in the raid that led to at least 160 deaths.

"From the Chechen underground there is nobody we are willing to talk to," Mr Yastrzhembsky said, rebuffing calls by some Russian parliamentarians and human rights groups for renewed peace negotiations. "Maskhadov can no longer be considered a legitimate representative" of the Chechen people, he added. "We have to wipe out the commanders of this movement."

Mr Maskhadov was elected in 1997 in Chechnya's only democratic poll, after the tiny republic had won de facto independence from Moscow in a bitter 20-month war. But he failed to gain control over fractious warlords and Chechnya spiralled into lawlessness and anarchy.

Russia invaded again in 1999, and after tough fighting has occupied all but the most mountainous areas of Chechnya. Three years on, the war still kills an average of three Russian soldiers daily and no end appears in sight.

Alexander Iskanderyan, director of the independent Centre for Caucasian Studies, based in Yerevan, Armenia, said: "If Maskhadov is discredited as a leader, then there is no one with any credibility left in Chechnya to talk to. This will suit the hawks who want to impose terms on Chechnya by force, not negotiate peace."

Mr Maskhadov has repeatedly said that he never authorises acts of terrorism, and on Wednesday declared he had no connection with the Moscow theatre attack.

Russia is trying to extradite Akhmed Zakayev, an aide to Mr Maskhadov, who was arrested on a Moscow-issued warrant by Danish police on Wednesday while he was attending an international conference on Chechnya in Copenhagen.

Mr Yastrzhembsky alleged that Mr Zakayev was also implicated in terrorism, and had helped to orchestrate the Copenhagen conference with the Moscow hostage-taking.

Meanwhile, Russian troops surrounded refugee camps in Ingushetia, housing tens of thousands of Chechens who have fled the fighting, in what experts fear may be a prelude to forcible resettlement to their war-ravaged republic next door.

The independent TVS network reported yesterday that the 503rd Motorised Rifle Division, a crack army unit, had been ordered to seal off three refugee camps, holding some 20,000 people, near Sleptsovsk on the Ingush-Chechen border.