MOSCOW, August 12 (Itar-Tass) —— Gunmen leader Abdullah Magomedaliyev nicknamed Daud killed in a special operation in Makhachkala was the first in Dagestan to begin to use the tactics of killing law-enforcement officers, spokesman for the National Antiterrorism Committee’s Information Centre Nikolai Sintsov told Itar-Tass.
“Abdullah Magomedaliyev was the first in the republic who in his bandit activities began to murder law-enforcement officers,” Sintsov said, adding that in his bandit attacks the gunman used forged identity cards of policemen and FSB officers.
Thirty-three-year-old Magomedaliyev was identified among the six persons killed in a special operation in Makhachkala’s Uchkhoz district on Thursday.
A tunnel and a reinforced concrete underground bunker, three meters wide and five metres long, with running water, sewage and electricity supply systems were discovered under the private house where they hid.
Two ready-for-use explosive devices equivalent to eight kilogrammes of TNT, a Shmel grenade launcher, four Mukha grenade launchers, two Makarov pistols, three submachine guns, a lot of ammunition, several automobile number plates, badges and special equipment of traffic police and camouflage uniforms were found in the bunker.
Together with Magomedaliyev, other five militants, including his common law wife Zarema Gabidulina, were killed at the site. According to the NAC information, the woman was prepared for committing a terrorist attack. Among the others were also two members of a group of bandits — Shamil Omarov and Abdullah Rasulov, a blasting specialist. The other two were supposed messenger Umar Aliyev and someone named Gadzhimurad (his identity has yet to be established).
Magomedaliyev, from the village of Gimry, Dagestan, was on the wanted list since 2002. According to the NAC, in 2006, he headed the so-called “northern front” of gunmen in the Shelkovskoy and Gudermes districts of Chechnya. In 2007, he returned to Dagestan where he was a member of Gadzhidadayev’s group. In 2010, Magomedali Vagabov (neutralized in August 2010) appointed him to head “the special battalion” specialized in acts of terror against law-enforcement officers and other officials.
The bandit was also involved in extortions and kidnapping for ransom. He was behind the terrorist attack committed by a suicide bomber at a base of interior troops in Buinaksk in September 2010, the attack committed by suicide bombers Khorosheva and Razdobudko in Gubden and the terrorist attack at a border guard post in the village of Khunzakh in the spring of 2010.
Magomedaliyev was also suspected of being involved in the murder of the chief of the Dagestani head’s information policy department and press service chief, Garun Kurbanov, in July 28, this year, and the attempt on the life of the chief of the “E” (extremism combating) centre of the Russian Interior Ministry’s department in Dagestan, police colonel Akhmed Bataliyev, on July 22. The official’s two bodyguards and the driver were killed in the attack. The gunman supposedly was also involved in the murder of three Dagestani businessmen and the theft of 24 million rubles from them.
According to the NAC information, Magomedaliyev through his emissaries abroad maintained contacts with Georgian secret services that provided assistance to his terrorist activities.