MOSCOW, April 08. /ITAR-TASS/. Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov has confirmed that Chechen militant ringleader Doku Umarov had been neutralized.

Bortnikov said on Tuesday at a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) that in the first quarter of this year “the leader of the terrorist organization Imarat Kavkaz, Doku Umarov, was neutralized in a special combat operation."

Earlier, Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov has repeatedly stated that Umarov had been killed. In an interview with journalists from three TV channels, Kadyrov said there was a recording of talks between the leaders of militant groups in Kabardino-Balkaria and Dagestan, who discussed choosing a new head of Imarat Kavkaz and mentioned Umarov's death.

Doku Umarov organized terrorist activities in the North Caucasus and actively paricipated in them. He was on the wanted list on charges of staging numerous terrorist acts, kidnappings, murders and other grave crimes.

In particular, he claimed responsibility for the explosion of the Nevsky Express speed train in 2009 when 28 people were killed, as well as for the March 2010 terror attacks in Moscow’s metro underground railway system that claimed the lives of 40 people.

The investigation believes that he was the mastermind of a suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport on January 24, 2011, which killed 35 people.

The US Department of State and UN Security Council put Umarov on the list of the most dangerous international terrorists.

 

Counter-terrorism operations in Russia

Nineteen terrorism-related crimes were averted, 13 warlords and 65 gunmen were killed in Russia from the beginning of this year, Bortnikov said on Tuesday.

“During the Winter Olympics, we kept stepping up efforts to curb criminal activity of gangs rampaging in several North Caucasian republics,” Bortnikov said.

“In the first quarter of 2014, 36 anti-terrorism operations have been carried out in line with operational plan. Among significant results is the neutralization of 13 warlords and 65 active gang members. More than 240 bandits and their accomplices were detained,” the FSB director said.