Beslan bereaved welcome Russian warlord's death

BESLAN, Russia, July 11 (Reuters) The Russian town where Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev staged his deadliest attack welcomed his killing today and then returned to the now daily routine of mourning its own dead.

''Am I rejoicing?'' said Susanna Dudiyeva. Her 12-year-old son was one of 186 children killed after gunmen acting on Basayev's orders stormed their school in the town of Beslan in 2004. ''I don't rejoice about anything any more.'' ''For me, it is important that he is dead but it is more important that his followers should be killed as well ... Basayev is killed but other Basayevs will come along,'' she said.

Yelena Gulayeva, dressed in black, was visiting the graveyard where most of the victims of the siege are buried. In all, 331 people were killed. Most died in a chaotic rescue operation after the gunmen held them hostage for three days.

''All this is his work,'' Gulayeva said as she looked over the ranks of red marble gravestones. ''I am happy that he was killed.

He got what he deserved,'' she told Reuters television.

Basayev was the most ruthless of the separatists fighting Moscow's rule over Chechnya. He died when a truck packed with explosives blew up early on Monday in southern Russia.

''I am happy that he is dead though it would have been better to take him alive,'' said Tamara Adyrkhayeva. With a mop and bucket, she was tending the graves of two grandchildren, her sister and her niece.

''I would have liked him to have been ... tried so that he could understand what pain he caused,'' she said. ''In any event, we'll still be coming here every day with tears in our eyes.'' CIVILIAN TARGETS Nearly everyone in Beslan lost a relative or a friend in the siege. For many of the bereaved mothers and grandmothers, visiting the cemetery has become a daily ritual.

Basayev and his men killed hundreds of Russian civilians, arguing they were legitimate targets. The war turned much of Chechnya to the east of Beslan to rubble.

Chechnya declared independence with the fall of the Soviet Union, but Russia refused to recognise the step and sent troops in 1994.

Basayev spearheaded resistance to the army, and with hostage-takings and raids was one of the commanders key to forcing it to leave in 1996.

Troops returned in greater numbers three years later, and Basayev turned to attacks on civilians like in Beslan, and elsewhere and even many former allies condemned his methods.

In Chechnya, now controlled by pro-Moscow forces, residents were more ambivalent about Basayev's death.

''I feel sorry for him,'' local resident Roza Ramazanova told a Reuters reporter in Chechen regional capital Grozny.

''Little Chechnya has been trying for years to get rid of big Russia but you see how it has all ended.'' ''I feel sorry for all those who set out on the path of truth and righteousness, including Basayev,'' said Murad Murtazov.

''They did not manage to give us what we needed, which was freedom,'' he said.

REUTERS SY BST2132