Former Chechen President Salim Khan Yandarbiyev has died after a car bomb attack in Qatar. The explosion in Doha on Friday also killed two of the bodyguards travelling with him. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Police have not given any details except to confirm the death and identity of the former separatist leader. Living in exile for the last three years, Yandarbiyev was the first nationalist from the breakaway republic to be added - at Russia's request - to a UN list of groups with suspected ties to al-Qaida network. Qatar repeatedly refused Moscow's request to extradite the rebel leader. However, the Gulf state had made his residence conditional on avoiding international attention and cutting his connections with the Chechen resistance movement. But on 9 February, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it was impossible to wage an effective war on terrorism if Chechen separatists could "calmly sit tight" in various countries around the world. Deputy FSB head Vyacheslav Ushakov publicly insisted that Ahmad Zakayev, Movladi Udugov and Yandarbiyev all be handed over to the Russian authorities. **Profile*** A writer and politician, Yandarbiyev - more than any other - has been cast as the modern-day father of Chechen independence. During the Soviet era, he was a member of the prestigious USSR Writer's Union and while writing on the history of the Caucasus he began to consider the grievances stemming from centuries of conflict. In the early 1990s, Yandarbiyev was instrumental in establishing independence as the pre-eminent political issue and persuaded Jokhar Dudayev to take on leadership of the movement. As the USSR weakened in the early 1990s, support for independence grew ever more strong. But Yanderbiyev did not take on the presidency of an independent Chechnya until Dudayev was assassinated in August 1996. But when Russian forces were forced to seek a truce, it was Aslan Maskhadov (not Yandarbiyev) who negotiated a treaty - the Khasavyurt Accord. The treaty delayed the question of independence for five years in return for a complete withdrawal - a deal that increased Maskhadov's popularity. In the region's first ever OSCE-observed independent elections, however, Yandarbiyev lost to Maskhadov and retired from domestics politics to become a roaming ambassador for the Chechen cause. His unwillingness to compromise on independence has led to the former president being labelled a hardliner. Differences of opinion over strategy meant that Yandarbiyev resigned from his diplomat role in November 2002. After he settled in Qatar, Russia first demanded his extradition in February 2003 - though no agreement was ever reached. Since then, Russia and the US agreed to add his name to the UN list of people connected to al-Qaida - effectively linking the Chechen struggle with international terrorism.