MOSCOW, July 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's number one terrorist Shamil Basayev was killed in a car accompanying a truck carrying explosives for a major terrorist attack in the republic of Ingushetia, a local police source said Monday.
The head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Nikolai Patrushev, told President Vladimir Putin earlier that a number of militants had been killed in Ingushetia.
The police source said, "Basayev's body was found by FSB officers after a car wired with explosives blew up. The convoy included three cars with militants, one of which was Basayev."
"The terrorist was decapitated by the explosion, but from characteristic traits, it was suggested that the body was none other than Shamil Basayev," the source said.
After initial examinations, the terrorist's identity was confirmed, he said.
Basyev had claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school massacre and other atrocities.
The siege of a school in Beslan in the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia in September 2004 led to the deaths of 331 people, including 186 children.
