A woman who was detained in Chechnya on suspicion of recruiting suicide bombers also facilitated contacts among different rebel groups and collected funds abroad for the rebels, a high-ranking Russian security official said Wednesday. Russian television showed security agents questioning the suspect, 31-year-old Natalia Khalkayeva, and bringing her to a lockup in the Chechen capital, Grozny. An explosives-filled belt and a satellite phone were confiscated from her, said Maj.-Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, the spokesman for the Federal Security Service in Chechnya. Shabalkin said Khalkayeva was a liaison for a rebel leader, Yunadi Turchayiv, the Interfax news agency reported. He said Khalkayeva used the satellite phone, which had been bought in an Arab country, to maintain contact with funders in the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey, Austria and other countries. Khalkayeva frequently traveled outside Chechnya over the past few months in order to receive foreign funds used for terror attacks and recruitment, including of female suicide bombers, Interfax quoted Shabalkin as saying.
