Five Islamic insurgents were killed in Dagestan in a skirmish with security forces on Saturday, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.
A police sniper from the nearby Republic of Adygea was also killed in the shootout, and three others law enforcers injured, the agency said. Initial reports spoke of three dead policemen.
Among the slain militants was the leader of the so-called “Tsuntinsky gang,” Gamzat Magomedov, the report said.
Magomedov and his men are linked to a string of murders in the Tsuntinsky district of the North Caucasus republic in 2010-2011, including the shooting of a lieutenant colonel of the border guards and a physical education teacher.
Another insurgent leader, Oki “Bilal” Nazhmudinov, who headed the “Kizlyar gang,” was slain in Dagestan earlier this week as part of the ongoing search for the militants.
An army squad also pelted a local boarding school with mortar shells on Thursday, mistaking it for an insurgent hideout. No one was injured.