Shamil Basayev was the leader of a radical Chechen guerilla .
On 17 September 2004 , radical Chechen terrorists commander Shamil Basayev , at this time operating autonomously from the rest of the North Caucasian rebel movement , issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Beslan school siege , which was strikingly similar to the Chechen raid on Budyonnovsk in 1995 and the Moscow theatre crisis in 2002 , incidents in which hundreds of Russian civilians were held hostage by the Chechen rebels led by Basayev .
Beslan school siege