MOSCOW, December 15 /TASS/. Law enforcers that liquidated a terrorist group in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan last Friday have established the identity of its ringleader responsible for training suicide bombers, a source at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), said on Monday.

One of the neutralized militants was identified as Murad Zalitinov, born 1984, also known as Abu Takhir. "He was the ringleader of the “Kadar” terrorist group. Since 2013, he was heading the Kadar sector of the Vilayat (Province) of Dagestan, a structural chain of the Imarat Kavkaz international terrorist organization,” the FSB source went on to say.

Zalitinov has been on the federal wanted list since 2011. “According to police information, Zalitinov was directly involved in the arson of a mosque and in shooting hunters in the Karabudakhkentsky district of Dagestan in 2011; he is believed to have murdered an imam in Karamakhi village in June 2012. Abu Takhir was also responsible for training suicide bombers. He stood behind the death of Madina Alieva, his Sharia wife, who blew herself up in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, in May 2013.

“In October-December 2013, Zalitinov sent three militants to stage bomb explosions in Volgograd,” the Federal Security Service said. He also made numerous encroachments on the lives of law enforcers.

On December 12, the FSB and the Russian Interior Ministry units neutralized a group of 5 militants who got entrenched in a private house. The terrorists had agreed to release women and children who were in the house before the security operation’s active phase started.

The investigative bodies initiated criminal proceedings on charges of illegal arms trade and encroachment on the life of law enforcers.

“Other neutralized militants are also being identified. Police are checking their possible complicity to other terror-related crimes,” the Federal Security Service said.