MOSCOW, 18 September 2004 — Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility yesterday for the Russian school siege in which more than 320 hostages were killed, half of them children, and threatened more attacks by any means he saw fit.

Basayev, Russia’s most wanted man, expressed regret for the bloody outcome in Beslan, blaming it on the Kremlin. He made clear there would be no let-up in rebel attacks in the future in the campaign for an independent Chechnya.

“We are not bound by any circumstances, or to anybody, and we will continue to fight as is convenient and advantageous to us, and by our rules,” he said in a statement.

The statement, that also gave a chilling account of his spending on attacks that have killed well over 400 people in a period of less than two weeks, appeared on rebel website www.kavkazcenter.com a day after President Vladimir Putin ruled out negotiations with Chechen separatists. Basayev confirmed Russian suspicions his group had also masterminded suicide bomb blasts that brought down two passenger planes over Russia on Au. 24 killing 90 people and two other bomb attacks in Moscow.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage denounced Basayev. “He has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is inhuman. Anyone who would use (the killing of) innocents for political aims is not worthy of existence in the type of society that we endorse,” he told a news conference in Warsaw.

Basayev said units of his Riyadus-Salikhin group had carried out the Sept. 1 attack on the school in southern Russia, seizing more than 1,000 hostages. It ended just over two days later in a bloodbath with Russian special forces storming the school amid bomb blasts and shooting.

He referred to it as the “North-West operation” — drawing a parallel with the Moscow theater siege in October 2002 which he also ordered. The musical “North-East” was being performed at the theater when an armed group seized it leading to a siege that ended with the deaths of 129 hostages.

Basayev said the Beslan attackers had demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and, in the absence of this, the resignation of Putin.

Taking up Putin’s charges of links between Chechen separatists and a wider international network of terror, Basayev denied any links with Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. “I don’t know bin Laden. I don’t get money from him, but I wouldn’t turn it down,” he said.

Hours later, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Putin as saying the West’s “patronizing and indulgent attitude” to terrorism amounted to complicity. It quoted Putin as telling an international meeting of city mayors that Western calls to negotiate with Chechen separatists amounted to the failed appeasement of Nazi Germany ahead of World War II.

“We have long warned about the threat of terrorist attacks, but our voice has not been heard,” he said. “Moreover, we faced double standard in the attitude toward terrorism.

“I urge you to remember the lessons of history, the amicable deal (with Adolf Hitler) in Munich in 1938... Of course, the scale of consequences is different... But the situation is very similar.”

Leading Western nations have expressed sympathy with Russia over the string of violent attacks, but urged Moscow to look for a political settlement in Chechnya. “A patronizing and indulgent attitude to the murderers amounts to complicity in terror,” Putin said. “Any surrender leads to them widening their demands and makes losses worse.”