MOSCOW, Sept 24 (AFP) - Russian officials Friday confirmed the death of a Saudi national, Abu Al-Walid, considered by intelligence services as the leader of Arab radicals fighting in Chechnya, who was reported by his family as having been killed last April.
"Abu Al-Walid was liquidated in mid-April on the territory of Chechnya," General Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the regional staff of Russia's counter-terrorist services, said as quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.
The Saudi militant "in March 2002 replaced the international terrorist Khattab, who was liquidated, as representative of the international terrorist organisations Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood," Shabalkin said.
The family of Abdel Aziz Al-Ghamdi, known to Russian intelligence services as Abu Al-Walid, reported him dead in April.
Then Chechen pro-Russian President Akhmad Kadyrov -- who died in a bomb last in the capital Grozny last May -- said he had not heard anything about the Saudi fighter being killed alongside Chechen separatists.
However he spoke of "large-scale" operations in the southern Vedeno, Nozhai-Yurt and Shelkovsoi regions.
A Russian military source said Al-Wahid could have been killed by missile fire.
FSB (Russian intelligence service) officials said Al-Wahid took over from Khattab, a radical warlord believed to have been born in Jordan or Saudi Arabia who was killed in Chechnya in March 2002.