Indian wins chess championship

India's Anand (left) unnerved Shirov with pacy attack

The Indian grandmaster Viswanathan Anand has beaten his Spanish rival Alexei Shirov to win the International Chess Federation (FIDE) world championship.

Anand took less than three hours to win the fourth game of the six-game final, held in Iran, giving him an unbeatable lead.

The contest, organised by the International Chess Federation, or FIDE, is a rival to the title recently won in London by Vladimir Kramnik, when he beat the former undisputed champion, Garry Kasparov.

Kramnik has hinted that he may take on the winner of the competition in Iran, ending a split in the chess world caused by disagreements between Kasparov and FIDE.

Pacy attack

Anand, aged 31, is the first Asian to claim a chess world title.

Kasparov: Disagreements with FIDE led to the split

He is currently number three in the world rankings, behind Kasparov and Kramnik.

He burst on to the international chess scene as a teenager in 1987, when he captured the Juniors Crown in the Philippines.

He beat England's Michael Adams in Delhi earlier this month to reach the Tehran final, while Shirov beat 17-year-old Russian sensation Alexander Grischuk.

Lithuanian-born Shirov, playing white, drew the first game against Anand on Wednesday.

In the third game, on Friday, Anand won despite playing black, unnerving Shirov with a fast-paced attack.

In Sunday's play, Shirov resigned on the 41st move.

Split

It was the first world chess championship played in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, after which the game was briefly banned.

Some believe that chess originated in Iran

Anand will formally be awarded the FIDE crown on Wednesday.

FIDE does not recognise either Kramnik or Kasparov.

The split came in the 1993 when Kasparov - whose claim to the title of the world's best player was unchallenged - defied FIDE by taking on England's Nigel Short in a rival "world chess championship" in London.

Iranian chess reborn

Some regard Iran as the birthplace of chess.

Less than 10 years after it was banned, Ayatollah Khomenei himself issued a fatwa making it legal again.

Now chess is making a comeback, with a national federation to promote its interests.

Officials say there are more than 100,000 active players in Iran.