Russia: Police kill 'the Sword of Islam'
A militant shot dead by police in the south Russian republic of Dagestan was one of the co-founders of al-Qaeda in the North Caucasus, a security service spokesman said on Wednesday.
Egyptian national Mohamad Shaaban, 49, was killed during a shootout with police in the tiny republic's mountainous Botlikhsky District on Tuesday. A Dagestani militant and a police officer also died.
An FSB spokesman said Shaaban, who went by the name of Seif Islam (the sword of Islam), had seen action in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and "was also in Sudan, Somali, Libya and Georgia."
"In 1992, he arrived in Chechnya to take part in operations against federal forces," the spokesman said, adding that Shaaban had organized the North Caucasus branch of al-Qaeda with Saudi-born Islamic radical Ibn Al-Khattab.
The mainly Muslim regions in Russia's North Caucasus have been plagued by militant violence, with almost daily attacks on security forces and officials.
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Source: RIA Novosti (English)
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