Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility today for assassinating the region's Moscow-backed leader and threatened to kill more officials, including the Russian prime minister.
Mr Akhmad Kadyrov was killed on May 9th by a bomb at a World War Two victory parade in an attack that risked derailing President Vladimir Putin's peace plan for the Muslim province.
Moderate rebels distanced themselves from the killing of Mr Kadyrov. But Basayev, who has been behind many of the major Chechen attacks on Russian targets in the past 10 years, said he had ordered the killing after a ruling by an Islamic court.
"Through the kindness of Allah, the Chechen people on May 9th celebrated a double holiday - that of the victory over fascism and a small but very important victory over Russia," he said in a statement on rebel website www.kavkazcenter.com .
"Our mujahideen, as part of operation 'Retribution', carried out the special operation and fulfilled an order by the Shariat court in relation to the national traitors Kadyrov and Isayev."
Mr Hussein Isayev, head of Chechnya's State Council, was also killed in the explosion along with five others.
Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, vowed to stage more assassination attempts against top officials and mentioned the Russian prime minister, currently Mr Mikhail Fradkov.
Mr Putin met government ministers to discuss ways of winning over Chechens by rebuilding their war-shattered province. But a key minister said he needed more money to do the job.
"If we really want to recreate the republic's economy quickly, then we must seriously raise expenditure," Economy Minister German Gref, who staged a visit to Chechnya on Saturday on Mr Putin's orders, told him.