Now that Shamil Basayev, one of the most vicious killers in one of the most vicious conflicts of the last 15 years is dead, what next for the Chechen rebels? This BBC story analyzes the situation.

An excerpt:

Akhmad Zakayev (foreign minister in the Chechen rebels' unrecognised government) says that Basayev's death is "a serious loss" to the separatists' cause but the rebels "have people who can replace him".

The separatists' current president, Doku Umarov, will shortly appoint a new overall military commander to replace Basayev, he adds.

Divided camp

As for Mr Umarov himself, Akhmad Zakayev considers him a "good leader... who controls the situation in Chechnya 100%".

According to Mark Galeotti (an expert on security issues in Russia at the UK's Keele University), Doku Umarov is a "relatively competent, middle-level guerrilla commander".

"He knows how to sort an ambush and arrange a raid but we are talking about the B-list here," he says.

In Dr Galeotti's view, the rebel leader just does not have a "credible vision" to unite the rebel movement which, he says, has seen a "process of fragmentation" since the death of Aslan Maskhadov.

"Since Maskhadov went, the rebels have not had a serious single political leader," he says.

"The rebel movement has been increasingly taken over by Islamic extremists. From the ordinary Chechen's point of view, you may hate the Russians and despise the pro-Moscow government as puppets.

"But increasingly, the rebels are not even ethnic Chechens, so that from the ordinary Chechen's point of view these Islamic extremists are just another bunch of invaders using Chechnya as their own battleground."