Chechen Warlord Sets Bounty for Official

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev speaks to the media in Grozny, in this Oct. 28, 1999 file photo. Basayev who is wanted for some of Russia's worst terrorist attacks has announced a US$25,000 bounty for the killing of a powerful government official in the troubled North Caucasus region, according to information posted Thursday on the Kavkaz Center Web site sympathetic to rebels. According to the Web site, Basayev also repeated his claim of responsibility for the 2004 bomb attack that killed Chechnya's Moscow-backed president, Akhmad Kadyrov, saying he paid US$50,000 to those who carried out the assassination. (AP Photo/Ruslan Musayev, File) (Ruslan Musayev - AP)

MOSCOW -- A Chechen warlord who is wanted for some of Russia's worst terrorist attacks has set a $25,000 bounty for the killing of a government leader in the troubled North Caucasus region, according to a posting Thursday on a Web site sympathetic to rebels.

The Kavkaz Center Web site also posted what appeared to be a new video of Shamil Basayev, the warlord who has claimed responsibility for seizing some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater in 2002 and the 2004 school siege in Beslan that killed 331.

According to the site, Basayev also repeated his claim of responsibility for the 2004 bombing that killed Chechnya's Moscow-backed president, Akhmad Kadyrov, saying he paid $50,000 to those who carried out the assassination.

The warlord said he had put a $25,000 bounty on the head of Kadyrov's son, Ramzan _ a flamboyant prime minister in the Kremlin-backed regional government who heads widely feared paramilitary forces accused of abducting civilians and other violence.

He is widely assumed to become the region's next president after he turns 30 later this year, the legal age for the job.

According the Web site, Basayev mocked Ramzan in offering the bounty by saying: "He isn't worth more than that."

The video, shot apparently with a cell phone, shows a man who appears to be Basayev and another one who the Web site identified as rebel leader Doku Umarov discussing how to make bombs from common household goods such as soda bottles and cans.

The two, dressed in warm clothing, can be heard speaking in Chechen. It also shows them eating, huddled around a smoky campfire.

The Web site said the video was shot at the end of March and beginning of April.

There was no way to confirm the authenticity of the video or the information on the site, but Kavkaz Center is known to be sympathetic or even allied with Chechen rebels, and Basayev has used it in the past to claim responsibility for attacks.

Large-scale fighting in Chechnya ended shortly after Russian forces launched their second invasion in the region in 1999, but rebels continue to stage regular hit-and-run raids and explode land mines against federal forces and their local collaborators.

Neighboring regions have seen increased violence in recent months, leading to fears that militants were spreading the fight beyond Chechnya's border throughout the North Caucasus.