Chechen villagers to be paid for info on separatist commander

Two residents of Shelkovskaya in Chechnya will be paid 300,000 rubles each within a few days for having alerted special services to the presence of a notorious separatist field commander and mastermind of terror attacks, Abubakar Visimbayev, in their village, Col. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the regional joint command in the North Caucasus, told Interfax on April 8.

Federal Security Service (FSB) officials checked the tip off and found that Visimbayev was indeed staying in the village at his parents' house, Shabalkin said. Visimbayev was killed while resisting arrest, he said.

FSB officers found a cache of $72,370 and 237,500 rubles in the house that Visimbayev probably intended to use to pay separatist fighters, Shabalkin said.

Together with Rustam Ganiyev and Danilkhan Elikhadzhiyev, Visimbayev took part in abducting, brainwashing and training young women for suicide missions in Moscow and the North Caucasus, in particular Zuliakhn Elikhadzhiyeva, Zarema Muzhikhoyeva, and the Ganiyev sisters, he said.

Visimbayev and Ganiyev have also had a hand in staging the terrorist attacks in Iliskhan-Yurt and at the Mozdok hospital, Shabalkin said.

Shamil Basayev had appointed Visimbayev to command operations in the Vedeno area, he said.

"Investigators are trying to identify Visimbayev's accomplices. It is known that he had about ten separatist fighters under his command," Shabalkin said.

Editors note: See also the article "Shamil Basayev's bodyguard destroyed in Chechnya".