WAHHABI LEADER KILLED.

On July 5, a spokesman for the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, a human rights organization, told Interfax that Abu Walid, an Arab who had succeeded Jordanian-born Khattab as commander of Wahhabi forces in Chechnya after Khattab’s death, “was killed in crossing the Khul-Khulao River” during a flood in Chechnya last month. “He and his horse were carried downstream by a sudden wave.” The Russian Combined Group of Forces “neither confirmed nor denied the spokesman’s words” (Interfax, July 5). On July 1, Interfax had likewise reported that the body of another major Wahhabi field commander, Rizvan Akhmadov, had been identified and had been buried by relatives (Interfax, July 1).