Security forces launch three antiterrorist operations in Dagestan, prominent militant leader killed
A prominent militant leader, whose group was responsible for series of explosions and assaults on police, was eliminated in Dagestan as Russian security forces staged three antiterrorist operations in the country’s turbulent region on Tuesday.
Eldar Magatov, the head of the so-called Babayurtovskaya gang,
had been in hiding in Dagestan’s Zubutli-Miatli village.
The private home, which the militant used for shelter, was
cornered off on Tuesday, while residents in nearby buildings were
evacuated, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAC) said.
“Information has been received that women and children may be
inside the house together with the criminal,” an NAC
spokesman told the ITAR-TASS news agency. “The head of the
special operation ordered negotiations to begin for their
release. As a result, two women and two children managed to get
out of the house.”
The militant was than given a chance to lay down his arms and
surrender, but he began shooting at the security forces instead
and was gunned down by reprisal fire, the spokesman said.
“He was preliminarily identified as Eldar Magatov, born in 1984,
the leader of the Babayurtovskaya gang,” he added.
One policeman received a gun wound in the shootout and is
currently hospitalized. No casualties among civilians were
reported during the operation.
According to the NAC, Magatov began his criminal activities in
Chechnya in 2006 and moved to neighboring Dagestan in January
2011.
Over the last three years, the Babayurtovskaya gang has been
involved in blackmailing Dagestani businessmen, explosions and
numerous attempts on the lives of policemen and court officials.
Another anti-terrorist operation was staged in the Vinsovkzhozny
village on the outskirts of the town of Khasavyurt.
At least three gunmen from a local gang were blockaded in a
private home there, with the security forces negotiating terms of
surrender.
The operation concluded “with no casualties among the
militants,” a police source told the RIA-Novosti news
agency, leaving it unclear whether the criminals were detained or
had managed to escape.
Antiterrorist forces have also besieged a house in Dagestan’s
Stalskoe village, but there no reports on the outcome of the
operation.
Also on Tuesday, the security forces successfully prevented a
terrorist blast in Ashaga-Stal village, where a homemade bomb was
planted near the office of the village’s administration.
“An improvised explosive device, equal to 7-5 kg of TNT, was
defused using a hydrodynamic destroyer,” a spokesman for the
NAC’s Operational Headquarters in Dagestan told the RIA-Novosti
news agency.
Russia’s southern Republic of Dagestan, together with neighboring
Chechnya and Ingushetia, has suffered from the continuous threat
of terrorism against the civilian population.
Blasts and shootouts between militants and law enforcement
officers occur in the region almost on a daily basis.
Dagestani police also say that two local citizens plotted the two
explosions, which killed 32 people in Volgograd on New Year’s
Eve.
A suicide bomber involved in one of the attacks was identified by
the Russian security forces as Pavel Pechenkin – an ethnic
Russian, who joined a terrorist cell in Dagestan in 2010.
