MAKHACHKALA, August 14. /TASS/. The leader of the so-called Khunzakhskaya militant group, Khadzhimurad Gadzhiyev, may be hiding in the village of Orota in Russia’s North Caucasian republic of Dagestan where counter-terrorism security alert was imposed on Sunday evening, a source in the republic’s law enforcement agencies told TASS.
"According to the information we have, the leader of the so-called Khunzakhskaya militant group, Khadzhimurad Gadzhiyev, nicknamed Abubakr, who is on the federal wanted list, may be hiding in that village," the source said.
He said law enforcers had hunted for the man in Orota in early August however no security alert had been imposed. "One house was blocked back then but it turned out to be empty. The militant managed to flee," the source said, adding that it is not ruled out that the man had never left the village ever since.
A spokesman for the National Anti-terror Committee’s (NAC) Dagestan headquarters said earlier on Sunday that counter-terrorism security alert had been imposed in the village of Orota in Russia’s North Caucasian republic of Dagestan to neutralize militants hiding there,.
"Officers of the Dagestan department of the Russian Federal Security Service and the local department of the Russian interior ministry established that militants of an extremist group who were involved in subversive and terrorism activities are hiding in the village of Orota in Dagenstan’s Khunzakhsky district," the spokesman said.