Separatist Leader Killed in Chechnya, Top Aide Confirms

Gen. Dzhokar M. Dudayev, leader of Chechnya’s drive for independence from Moscow, was killed in a Russian air attack near his mountain headquarters, a rebel commander confirmed today.

Dudayev’s death stirred grave concern in Moscow that the brutal conflict that began when Russia sent troops into the region 16 months ago has taken a perilous and unpredictable turn.

Top Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev said Dudayev’s deputy, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, has taken over as overall rebel leader. Basayev, speaking early today on a television channel broadcast from the southern mountains held by the separatists, said a three-day mourning period would be observed for Dudayev.

Dudayev, a 52-year-old retired Soviet air force general, ran a self-declared independent Muslim republic for more than three years until the Russian army ousted him from Grozny, the Chechen capital, at the start of a conflict that has claimed more than 20,000 lives and kept the Kremlin in a state of crisis.

His survival for more than a year as head of a clandestine army and Russia’s most wanted fugitive has been one of the mysteries of the war.

Itar-Tass, the official Russian news agency, said Dudayev was killed Sunday night in a field near the Chechen village of Gekhi-Chu while speaking by satellite telephone to an unidentified contact trying to arrange peace talks with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin. An assistant died along with him, it said.

A written statement from Dudayev’s government, also quoted by the agency, described the bombing as “an act of terrorism” and called on Chechens to “rally together” to a “victorious end.”

Yeltsin, who was visiting Russia’s Far East on the way to China, was informed of Dudayev’s death but had no comment.

Itar-Tass said Dudayev is to be buried in Shalazhi, a village not far from where he was reported killed.

In a March 17 interview with The Times in Shalazhi, Dudayev said he was convinced that Yeltsin’s Security Council had ordered his assassination but that he was determined to continue the war. After March 31, however, when Yeltsin announced an offer to hold peace talks, Dudayev softened his stand, saying he was willing to meet with a mediator.

But the conflict in southern Russia took an ugly turn last week when Dudayev’s guerrillas attacked an armored government convoy, killing at least 76 Russian soldiers and prompting the army to suspend Yeltsin’s cease-fire and troop withdrawal from Chechnya.

Konstantin N. Borovoi, a member of the Russian parliament who met with the rebel leader last month to help persuade him to enter peace talks, said: “If Dudayev is really dead, it would be wise to give the Chechens enough time to agree on their mutual interests and coordinate their actions. Otherwise, there will be dozens of independent armies to fight with.”

Dudayev, who declared independence after his election as Chechnya’s president in 1991, has been viewed as a unifying and somewhat moderating force on the younger field commanders conducting the war.

But in the interview with The Times last month, he said his commanders “have made preparations so that in case of my death, [the Russians’] ordeal would increase tenfold.”

Yandarbiyev, Dudayev’s successor, is a weak figure whose rule would certainly be overshadowed by a struggle between Gen. Aslan Maskhadov, Dudayev’s moderate defense minister, and Basayev, who led a bloody hostage-taking raid into southern Russia last summer and has threatened to unleash terrorism against Moscow.