The United States said on Tuesday that the Chechen conflict in Russia should be resolved politically.

US policy has always been a political resolution to the crisis over the breakaway Russian republic, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher hours after rebel leader Aslan Maskhadovwas reportedly killed by Russian troops.

Maskhadov, 53, led the Chechen separatists who fought Russian forces to a standstill in a 1994-96 war and he became the republic's president after the Russian military withdrew.

The separatist leader has been branded by Moscow as a terrorist,and accused of being responsible for a series of attacks on military and civilian targets in recent years, including the Beslan school massacre last autumn, and a hostage-taking at the Dubrovka theater in Moscow in October 2002.

The two most notorious terror acts left together nearly 500 people dead.

Source: Xinhua