MOSCOW, August 11 (Itar-Tass) — Six gunmen, including a mastermind of a terrorist act that killed 56 servicemen at a police base in Buinaksk in September 2010, have been killed in a special operation in Makhachkala, the capital city of Russia’s volatile republic of Dagestan in North Caucasus, a spokesman for the National Anti-terrorism Committee said on Thursday.
“In all, six militants, including one woman, were killed in the anti-terrorism operation. They all were members of an odious gangs operating in Makhachkala and its environs, in the Untsukulsk and Buinaksk districts of the republic,” the spokesman said.
According to the spokesman, of the six militants is Adulla Magomedaliyev, dubbed as Daud, a militant since 2004 and a leader of the so-called “northern front” in Chechnya’ s Shelkovsky and Gudermes districts from 2006. In 2007, he returned to Dagestan and in 2010 Dagestan warlord Magomedali Vagabov appointed him the leader of the so called “special brigade” specializing in terrorist acts against police officers and local government officials. Apart from it, the National Anti-terrorism Committee says Magomedaliyev was involved in large-scale extortions and kidnappings.
According to police information, Magomedaliyev was involved in training a suicide bomber and staging a terrorist act at a police base in Buinaksk in September 2010, which claimed 56 human lives. He is believed to be behind a terrorist act in Gubden committed by suicide bombers Khorosheva and Razdobudko (that killed 26 policemen), a terrorist attack on the border post in Khunzakh in the spring of 2010 (five servicemen were wounded).
Magomadaliyev is also suspected of being involved in the murder of spokesman for the Dagestan head Garun Kurbanov on July 28, and in an attempt on the life the chief of Russian Interior Ministry’s anti-extremism centre in Dagestan, Akhmed Bataliyev, on July 22 (Bataliyev’s driver and two bodyguards were killed). The man is also suspected in the murder of three Dagestani businessmen and in stealing 24 million roubles from them.
“Via his foreign envoys Magomedaliyev maintained contacts with Georgian secret services which gave him a hand in his terrorist activity,” the spokesman said.