Terrorist leader is killed in shootout

THE man suspected of organising suicide bombings that killed 40 people on the Moscow subway in March was killed in a shootout with Russian security forces yesterday.

Madomedali Vagabov was killed along with four others during a gunfight with special forces in the province of Dagestan, according to local police spokesman Vyacheslav Gadzhiye. He said the suspects were killed when the house they were holed up in caught fire.

The National Anti-terrorism Committee told Russian news agencies that Vagabov was effectively second in command in the separatist insurgency in Russia's mountainous North Caucasus region. The head, Doku Umarov, claimed responsibility for the subway attacks, carried out by two female suicide bombers.

State television said one of the suicide bombers had been married to Vagabov. It showed the immediate aftermath of Saturday's clash, a smouldering, half-destroyed stone house in a picturesque valley. Security forces in camouflage paced around the bodies. Umarov has evaded capture in the forested mountains of the region. He announced this month he was stepping down as leader, but later backtracked.

Russia has been fighting the insurgency after two wars in Chechnya in the past 15 years. Large-scale fighting ended years ago, but daily attacks on police and troops still occur. Rights activists say these are in part provoked by extra-judicial killings, torture, and kidnappings by local authorities under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

The militants want an Islamic emirate in the North Caucasus under Sharia law. According to reports Vagabov was born in 1975 and was a model pupil at school, but in his free time studied Arabic and Islam and at the age of 15 participated in a public meeting to demand the right for Russian Muslims to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca which all Muslims must undertake at least once.