Chechnya's feared warlord Shamil Basayev on Friday claimed responsibility for the deadly school hostage taking in southern Russia that killed more than 330 people, half of them children, according to a rebel website.
Rebels commanded by Basayev have "carried out a series of successful military operations," including "the operation in the town of Beslan," said a letter signed by the 39-year-old and posted on the rebel website kavkazcenter.com.
Its authenticity could not be immediately verified, but Chechen rebels often post their statements on the site, which is operated out of Lithuania's capital Vilnius.
Following Basayev's claim, Lithuania's Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas said his government would soon shut down the site on charges that it is inciting religious and national hatred.
Russia considers the rebel leader its public enemy number one and has offered a 10 million-dollar reward both for Basayev and another, more moderate Chechen rebel chief, Aslan Maskhadov.
Basayev's letter was posted two weeks after the hostage taking at a school in Beslan ended in a chaotic firefight between rebels and security forces that killed at least 339 people.
Chechnya's most notorious warlord placed the ultimate blame for the carnage on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he said ordered the school to be stormed.
"The Kremlin bloodsucker destroyed and injured 1,000 children and adults, having given the order to storm the school for imperialist ambitions," the letter said.
"The storming was initiated by Russia's security services," it said.
Basayev said his men had been ready to release their hostages if their demands - the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and the termination of the five-year-old war there - were met.
He also dismissed world-wide criticism of the hostage-taking, accusing the world of adopting double standards when it came to the killing of Chechen civilians during the Chechen war.
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