Moscow: Former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev - a separatist leader who was linked to al-Qaeda network by UN Security Council and wanted by Russia for a terrorist strike in Dagestan - was killed today (Feb 13, 2004) in a car bomb blast in Doha in the Gulf State of Qatar, along with his two bodyguards.

According to NTV network, the 51-year-old Yandarbiyev, who was seriously injured in the blast, succumbed in a Doha hospital.

The UN Security Council had listed Yandarbiyev among the persons linked with al-Qaeda terror network and Moscow was seeking his extradition for unleashing a terror strike on Chechnya's neighbouring Dagestan in 1999, which led to the meteoric rise of Vladimir Putin on the Russian power Olympus.

Yandarbiyev was briefly Chechnya's acting-President in 1995-96 and had led the separatist regime's delegation at Kremlin talks with the erstwhile Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

After the election of Aslan Maskhadov as the new Chechen President in 1996, Yandarbiyev was living in exile in Qatar and had been raising funds for Chechen rebels fighting against Moscow's rule.

Yanadrbiyev's fund-raising visit to Pakistan in 1990s had been a major stumbling bloc in the normalisation of ties between Moscow and Islamabad.

Pro-Moscow Chechen leaders in Russia have attributed the assassination of Yandarbiyev to infighting in the rebel camp over the control of finances, Russian TV reported.