MOSCOW, October 28 (RIA Novosti) – Four militants were killed in a series of security operations across Russia’s turbulent North Caucasus last week, the Interior Ministry said Monday.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement that the militants killed included two leading figures in Caucasus Emirate, a self-proclaimed virtual Islamist state along Russia’s southern border.
A total of 48 raids were carried out over the week ending Friday, leading to the detention of 12 suspected militants in Dagestan, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria, the statement said.
One civilian was killed and another was injured as a result of militant attacks during the week, the ministry said.
Attacks in the North Caucasus on security forces, police and civilians generated by ethnic, religious and political rivalries, as well as poverty and corruption, occur on a regular basis.
The violence is fed in part by an Islamist insurgency stemming from separatist struggles in the republic of Chechnya.