MOSCOW – An Arab militant reported to be al-Qaeda’s top emissary to an Islamist insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus region, has been killed by security officials, according to federal authorities.
Russia’s national anti-terror committee said yesterday that Khaled Yusef Mukhammed al Emirat was among its most wanted insurgents and had participated in the planning of nearly all the suicide bomb attacks in Russia in recent years.
A decade after federal forces drove a separatist government from power in Chechnya in a war that started in 1999, Moscow is struggling to contain a growing Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus.
Russian officials say the insurgency depends on ideological and financial patronage from the Middle East and militant Islamist groups like al-Qaeda, although analysts dispute the extent of those links.
Known by his code name Moganned, al Emirat had been in the North Caucasus since 1999. He was reportedly shot and killed by law enforcement agencies in Chechnya. National anti-terrorist committee officials could not immediately be reached for comment yesterday.
A suicide bomb attack claimed by the insurgent leader Doku Umarov killed 37 people in Moscow’s busiest airport in January. Twin suicide bomb attacks killed 40 people on the Moscow metro in March 2010.
The committee said al Emirat had been competing with Umarov for power within the insurgency, according to the reports. – (Reuters)