Russia says militant leader killed in Dagestan
Russian authorities today said one of the insurgents killed in a day-long gun and tank fight in Dagestan was a top militant suspected of being the mastermind of one of Russia’s deadliest terrorist attacks.
Rappani Khalilov was killed in yesterday’s 12-hour battle that broke out in a Dagestani village after police forces surrounded a house, said Mark Tolchinsky, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry’s Dagestan division.
Authorities say Khalilov was behind the 2002 bomb attack on a military parade in the town of Kaspiisk that killed 42 people.
His fighters also have been blamed for a wide range of attacks in Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, where Russian forces and separatists have fought two wars since 1994.
Khalilov was also believed to be one of the main figures in the 1999 incursion by Chechen rebels into Dagestan that was aimed at establishing an Islamic state in the region.
The Kavkaz Centre website, a mouthpiece for rebels throughout Russia’s restive Northern Caucasus region, said Khalilov last summer was named as “emir of the Dagestani Front,” but did not confirm Russian claims of his death.
