A misguided strike at the rebels' heart; The conflict in Chechnya; A successful but misguided strike at the rebels' heart.

Aslan Maskhadov, the leader of Chechnya's independence movement, has died in a raid by Russian special forces. But removing the relatively moderate Mr Maskhadov will only make the republic's long-running conflict harder to solve

THE conflict in Russia's rebellious southern republic of Chechnya took a dramatic turn on Tuesday March 8th, when Russian special forces tracked down Aslan Maskhadov, the leader of Chechnya's separatist fighters, who was killed during the raid. According to Russian media reports, one of Mr Maskhadov's captured followers had led the Russian troops to his hideout, a concrete bunker under a building in the village of Tolstoy-Yurt, north of the Chechen capital, Grozny. Accounts differ as to what killed Mr Maskhadov: the Russians say it was one of their grenades, while a Chechen politician has claimed he was shot accidentally by one of his bodyguards.

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, hailed the assassination as a blow against terrorism. Others said the Kremlin had shot itself in the foot by removing a man who, unlike many of his rebel colleagues, was prepared to …