Bin Laden Financing Chechen Rebels

MOSCOW, Sep 14, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia's top prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said on Thursday he had proof that Afghan-based alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden is financing separatist rebels fighting Russian forces in Chechnya.

Ustinov said he had informed a Council of Europe envoy, Lord Frank Judd, of the links between the Chechen rebels and Bin Laden, the Saudi-born businessman who is the leading suspect in probes into Tuesday's attacks on key buildings in New York and Washington in which thousands of people are believed to have died.

"We have information that the terrorists in Chechnya (the standard Russian reference to Chechen separatists) have received training in foreign countries and funding from Bin Laden and other Wahhabite organizations," he was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Judd, chairman of the Council of Europe parliamentary submittee on human rights, is currently on a visit to Moscow.

A diplomat at the Afghan embassy in Moscow -- which recognizes the exiled Afghan government -- also said that Chechen rebels were being trained in Afghanistan.

Sahi Gairat, embassy first secretary, quoted an eyewitness report that the rebels were "being trained at a camp for international terrorists" near the Zolmaikut military base in the northwestern Herat region, Interfax reported.

Russia intelligence services have frequently accused Bin Laden -- who is based in Afghanistan -- of financing and arming the Chechen rebels.

Since Tuesday's attacks in the United States, Moscow has been stressing supposed links between world terrorism and a Chechen rebel insurgency it is attempting suppress in what it describes as an "anti-terrorist operation." ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)