U.S. links bin Laden to Chechnya

Islamic rebel commander-in-chief Shamil Basayev speaks on his walkie talkie in the mountains in the Botlikh region of Dagestan last week. Senior U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials tell NBC News that there has been recent intelligence reporting that alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden is financing the Chechen operation in Dagestan and may be ready to leave Afghanistan for the rebellious Russian republic of Chechnya. The United States believes that one of the main foreign sources of money is bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi exile long alleged to be the head of a widespread terror network and most recently indicted by the United States as the mastermind of last year_s U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa. The key bin Laden connection in Chechnya is a rebel leader known by the nom de guerre "Hattab." The one-eyed Hattab is a Jordanian who fought in Afghanistan and then moved on to Chechnya and "earned the right to remain there" because of his fighting there during the recent civil war with Russia, said one official. Hattab was one of the first to help both the Afghanistan rebels and the Chechens. Of the first 3,000 Chechen rebels, 600 were Arabs like Hattab who had fought against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Now, however, say officials, Hattab and his crowd have become a serious threat to the government of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected in an open election monitored by the international observers. On the issue of bin Laden leaving Afghanistan for Chechnya, analysts are divided as to its likelihood, but none see it happening soon.