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Dudayev killed in Russian

missile strike

MOSCOW: Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev has confirmed that rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev has been killed in a Russian missile strike, the Interfax news agency said on Wednesday.

The agency reported from the Chechen capital Grozny that Basayev announced Dudayev's death on rebel television late on Tuesday.

Basayev said a three-day mourning period would be observed for Dudayev.

He added that the 44-year old Vice President of Dudayev's regime, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, was appointed as rebel leader.

The Itar-Tass news agency, quoting Chechen rebel government sources, reported yesterday that Dudayev was killed in a rocket attack Sunday night near the settlement of Gekhi Chu, 30 kilometers southwest of Grozny.

On the news of Dudayev's death, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said in an interview with Itar-Tass that "with or without Dudayev, we will settle everything in Chechnya peacefully all the same. There will be no war there."

The president, in the Far East city of Khabarovsk on his way to China, condemned Dudayev as an instigator of war.

Dudayev, 52, declared Chechen independence in 1991. He had been hiding in the mountains since Moscow sent Russian troops to the Caucasian republic in December 1994.