MOSCOW. Nov 11 (Interfax-AVN) - Chechen warlords Aslan Maskhadov and Shamil Basayev will be killed soon, Viktor Karpukhin, former commander of the Alfa anti-terrorist force, has said.
"They don't have much time left, believe me," he said in an interview published in the Monday edition of the Izvestia newspaper.
At the same time, Karpukhin said that Chechen rebels are very careful and it is practically impossible to use special forces' spies in intelligence work with them. "You can only get close to them by means of blood. Could you yourself cut the throats of our imprisoned soldiers so that Basayev recognizes you as his man?" Karpukhin asked.
He believes that rebels may try to carry out other terrorist acts in Russia. "Terrorists have a headquarters and money: the preparation of the terrorist act in a Moscow theater cost at least USD2m. These are perpetrators who are unthinking religions fanatics. The special services are working, the police are also working, although not to their full capacity, but no one can give you a 100 percent guarantee that another tragedy will not happen tomorrow," Karpukhin said.