[Chechen martyr, Arbi Barayev]

MOSCOW (Islamweb & Agencies) - Russia hailed on Monday the death of Chechen Resistance leader Arbi Barayev, after its troops recovered the body of the exceptional resistance field commander who has led many successful operations against the Russian invading forces.
Russian television said several thousand crack troops had swooped on a village outside Grozny to encircle Barayev and his followers. It said many of the Chechen fightes , including the Barayev, were killed in six days of grinding battles which ended on Sunday.
Barayev, one of Russia’s most wanted men and the first leading resistance chief to die in Russia's costly drive to eliminate resistance commanders, has been accused of masterminding serial kidnappings for ransom of locals and foreigners.
RTR Television showed the body of a bearded man with the lower jaw held up by a bandage lying on a stretcher. Officials said the body had been identified by Barayev's relatives and would be handed over to them for burial.
Chechen Resistance acknowledged Barayev's death on their Kavkaz.org Web site, saying that ``the commander of the Special Islamic regiment Arbi Barayev has become a shahid (martyr).''
They said Barayev had about 50 fighters with him when troops stormed the village of Alkhan-Kala, southwest of Grozny.
The Resistance Web site admitted that the military operation had dealt a blow to the Resistance, with at least 20 ``mujahideen'' killed. The Kremlin's chief Chechnya spokesman, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, put resistance losses at 17 dead. He claimed that only one Russian serviceman was killed and six were wounded.
Russia accused Barayev of kidnapping an envoy of then President Boris Yeltsin, and an Interior Ministry general on a mission in Chechnya. The latter died in captivity.
Russian troops withdrew humiliated after losing a 1994-96 war against Chechen Republican forces but returned in 1999. Moscow claims control over Chechnya, but servicemen are killed almost daily in resistance attacks and tens of thousands of refugees remain unwilling to return home.
Separately, a Russian court in neighboring Dagestan jailed a group of resistance fighters for terms ranging from 14 to 21 years for their role in an ambush on a Russian police convoy in Chechnya in March 2000. The resistance killed and took prisoner 32 men in the attack. They later executed all their captives.