Moscow: A top member of a major terrorist group, involved in the November bombing of a super fast train and other major strikes in Russia, has been killed in a special operation, Russian authorities said.
Alexander Tikhomirov alias Said Buryatsky, killed in a special operation on Tuesday, was involved in the bombing of Nevsky Express plying from Moscow to St Petersburg on November 27, 2009, director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov said.
Buryatsky and five others were killed during a special operation in Russia's Caucasian republic of Ingushetia on March 2.
"DNA tests of the militants have been carried out to establish their involvement in the blowing of the tracks and derailment of the Nevsky Express in November 2009. These materials allow us to consider them guilty of this crime," Bortnikov said in a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev.
Around 28 people were killed and over 90 injured on November 27 last when the Nevsky Express travelling at high-speed was partially derailed after a bomb equivalent to 7 kg of TNT was detonated on the track.
Bortnikov said that police found a laboratory for making explosive devices and seized more than 1,000 kg of explosives, arms and ammunition at the site of the special operation in Ingushetia's Nazran district.
According to RIA Novosti, the gang was planning another major terrorist attack in the North Caucasus.
"Buryatsky himself was training suicide bombers," it said. Investigators claim Buryatsky was also the organiser of other major attack, including the assassination attempt on Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in June 2009 and the suicide attack on police station in Nazran last August when more than 20 policemen were killed.
The FSB chief also said that an Ingush treasury official was the financier of Said Buryatsky's gang.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, March 07, 2010, 09:54