9 Suspected Militants Killed

Aug. 20, 2013

MAKHACHKALA — Authorities say police have killed nine people including a prominent warlord in a clash in the restive North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.

Investigate Committee spokesman Rasul Temirbekov said police stormed a house in the town of Buinaksk on Tuesday morning, killing the owner of the house and nine men.

Investigators said that among the nine killed was 50-year-old Bammatkhan Sheikov, a prominent warlord who was said to be competing to oversee all militant operations in Dagestan. Sheikov was sentenced to three years in prison for insurgency in 2008 after he turned himself in and laid down arms.

Dagestan has become the epicenter of an Islamic insurgency that has spread through the Caucasus region after two separatist wars in Chechnya.

(AP)

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