Moscow: Russian security forces on Saturday
claimed a major success in their anti-terror drive as they
gunned down a top Islamist militant said to be the mastermind
of the March suicide bombings on Moscow metro.
In a successful operation, the Russian security forces
killed the notorious warlord Magomedali Wagabov (Wahabov), in
a raid in the Daghestani village of Gunib.
He was killed along with four other militants in a
joint operation by the police and Russian Federal Security
Service (FSB), National Anti-terror Centre (NAC) announced.
Wagabov, according to Russian security forces, was
trained in Pakistan, and was the Emir of Daghestani Jamaat
since 2005.
Russia security forces had been in the hunt for
Wagabov for the past several months.
According to some reports, Wagabov was the husband of
Mariyam Sharipova, who was one of the two suicide attackers of
the busy Lubyanka and Park Kultury stations of the Moscow
metro on March 29.
The blasts had killed 40 people and over 100 were
injured.
Immediately after the blasts President Dmitry Medvedev
had ordered the security services to trace all the
perpetrators and organisers of the Moscow metro blasts right
up to the top and eliminate them.
Wagabov, who had declared himself "Emir Abdullah of
Gubden" in 2005 was number two in "Imarat of Caucasus" headed
by fugitive Chechen warlord Doku Umarov.
"After getting military training in sabotage in
Pakistan, he maintained direct contacts with the
representatives of international terrorist organisations and
was receiving financial assistance from them for carrying out
terrorist acts," Russia`s National Anti-terror Committee (NAC)
said in its press release.
On Wagabov`s orders, bombs were planted on railway
tracks, local officials and policemen were killed.
He was actively involved in enrolling youth in his
underground cells and had organised the training of female
suicide bombers, NAC said.
RIA Novosti reported that one of the other four
militants killed today along with Wagabov was also so called
"Amir of Khasavyurt district" Rustam Munikiyev.
PTI
