Azeri militant killed by Russian forces in Dagestan

Russian security forces have killed five suspected Islamist militants in a special operation in Dagestan that also left one serviceman dead, the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAK) said.

"As a result of the clash five criminals were neutralised," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies yesterday, naming one as a senior local militant named Tural Atayev, a citizen of Azerbaijan.

It said that one member of the security forces had also been killed and one other wounded in the clash in the village of Pervomaiskoe in the Khasavyurt region of Dagestan.

The security forces acted after receiving information that the militants were in a house in the area and they opened fire after the rebels refused to lay down their weapons.

The NAK said that Atayev had helped organise an attack in the Caucasus spa town of Pyatigorsk in December 2013 killed three people.

The Kremlin is still fighting a deadly insurgency against Islamist rebels in the Northern Caucasus, with unrest particularly intense in Dagestan, where clashes happen on an almost daily basis.

Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov, whose Caucasus Emirate group claimed responsibility for a string of deadly attacks in Russia over the last years, has been killed, a pro-insurgency website said last week -- although this has yet to be confirmed by Russian officials.

ANN.Az