Terrorist who plotted Beslan school siege dies in blast

The Chechen terrorist who claimed to have masterminded the Beslan school siege was killed in a huge explosion yesterday. Shamil Basayev was apparently preparing to mount a fresh attack to coincide with this weekend’s G8 summit in St Petersburg. Russian officials claimed he was killed in a special forces operation after a decade-long manhunt.

The Chief would guess that this makes the Russians feel pretty good, and in fact this guess is confirmed by Putin himself:

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, was jubilant after being told of Basayev’s death. “For the bandits, this is just retribution for our children in Beslan … and for all the terrorist attacks they carried out in Moscow and other regions of Russia,” he said.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!