fb-pixelChechen militant who targeted Olympics is dead, Kadyrov says - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

Chechen militant who targeted Olympics is dead, Kadyrov says

MOSCOW — Doku Umarov, a militant who claimed responsibility for attacks in Russia and threatened to target the Winter Olympics in Sochi, has been ‘‘eliminated’’ during an antiterror operation, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said.

‘‘We are 99.9 percent sure,’’ said Kadyrov, a former Chechen rebel who switched sides and was picked by President Vladimir Putin to run the region in 2007, according to comments posted on his website Friday. ‘‘That’s why all the talk about a threat to the Sochi Olympics is groundless.’’

Umarov, who proclaimed himself emir of an Islamic state in the North Caucasus, told supporters in July to attack next month’s Olympics. He has also said he was behind attacks including bombings in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport and subway. Chechnya, which fought two wars for independence from Russia in the 1990s, is about 270 miles east of Sochi.

Advertisement



Officials obtained a recorded conversation among insurgent leaders where they exchanged condolences over Umarov’s death and discussed candidates to replace him, Kadyrov said. Russian law-enforcement agencies were not able to confirm the claim, the Interfax news service reported.

More than 30 people died in two suicide bombings in the southern Russian city of Volgograd last month. Regional leaders in nearby Stavropol conducted a counterterrorism operation this month after six corpses were found in abandoned cars.

Some pro-militant websites have published reports confirming Umarov’s death, according to the Moscow-based news and research group Caucasian Knot.

Umarov’s death, if confirmed, is unlikely to ease the terrorist threat to the Sochi Olympics, said Gregory Shvedov, chief editor of Caucasian Knot.

Militants fighting against Russia in the Caucasus Mountains near Sochi often leak false information about their leaders’ deaths to confuse their enemies, said Nikolai Kovalyov, a former director of the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB.

‘‘I’m sure Kadyrov is fully in control of the situation and that he’s getting objective information,’’ Kovalyov said by phone. ‘‘In this case, I believe the information.’’

Advertisement