MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The leader of a terrorist group linked to the 2013 Volgograd terrorist attacks was killed in a special operation in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee reported Friday.

“The active phase of the security operation is over in the Gurbuki village of Dagestan’s Karabudakhkentsky district. All the militants have been neutralized. One of them has preliminarily been identified as a leader of the central sector of a terrorist underground group operating in the territory of Dagestan,” the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.

The man is linked to a number of terrorist attacks, including the murder of mosque imams, assassination attempts on the lives of law enforcers and extortion of money from businessmen. “Police also know about his complicity to the 2013 terrorist acts in Volgograd and the shooting of hunters in the Karabudakhkentsky district of Dagestan in 2011,” the National Anti-Terrorist Committee stressed.

Police found huge amounts of firearms, a grenade launcher and munitions as well as self-made explosive devices which could have been used for staging terrorist acts in a house where the militants had entrenched themselves to put up military resistance.

“Bomb disposal experts of the Russian Federal Security Service have de-activated the self-made explosive devices. They are inspecting the battle scene at the moment,” the National Anti-Terrorist Committee went on to say.

At present, law enforcers are identifying the neutralized militants checking their possible complicity to other terror-related crimes.

No civilian casualties or police losses have been reported.