GROZNY, May 13 (RIA Novosti) - A bunker of a separatist leader has been found in the west of Russia's troubled Caucasus republic of Chechnya, Russia's Interior Ministry said Saturday.
"Doku Umarov's personal bunker is located in a house in the village of Asinovskaya," the source said. "It is equipped with ventilation shafts and underpasses. Chechen Interior Ministry officers discovered the bunker while conducting a special police operation."
Officers found Umarov's correspondence and other documents, explosives, mines, large amounts of small arms and ammunition in the bunker, which was designed to accommodate up to 20 people.
Umarov, a successor to the killed separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, has reportedly been hiding in the bunker for a long time.
Umarov, along with Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted terrorist, who has claimed responsibility for a string of bloody attacks in Russia, including the Beslan school tragedy, which claimed the lives of 331 people, led an armed raid on Ingushetia in June 2004. Militants then attacked 19 police precincts and prisons in the neighboring North Caucasus republic.
Russian prosecutors said at the time Umarov and Basayev had ordered 200-300 gunmen under their command to kill police officers and seize weapons. A total of 90 people, including 62 police officers and 28 civilians, were killed and 93 injured in the raid on Ingushetia, prosecutors said.
