Shamil Basayev, the self-styled Chechen terrorist leader who was behind the bloody seizure of a school in Beslan and several other acts of mass murder, lived for terror. And so it followed that he was obliterated yesterday in an explosion that has been variously described as an assault by Russian special troops or as an accident as his rebels...

The loveliest street in Chechnya runs for all of a block here in the battered republic's second largest city. It is lined with trees, paved and washed. The buildings, new or newly renovated, include a cultural center and two shops. One deals in mobile phones, which only recently began to work in Chechnya. The other sells jewelry, including a...