Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Wednesday that his forces have killed six suspected militants, including a warlord accused of organizing a 2011 suicide attack at a Moscow airport.
Kadyrov said that troops under his command had tracked down the suspects in the village of Katar-Yurt and killed all of them on the spot. Kadyrov claimed that the raid marked the elimination of the last group of militants that remained in the region.
Kadyrov said that those killed included warlord Aslan Byutukayev, whom Russian authorities accused of involvement in the January 2011 suicide bombing at the arrivals area of Moscow’s Domodedovo airport that killed 37. Byutukayev appeared in a video alongside top Chechen warlord Doku Umarov and the suicide bomber.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone conversation with Kadyrov and congratulated him and other participants of a special operation that eradicated a criminal gang led by Aslan Byutukayev.
"President Putin had a phone conversation with Ramzan Kadyrov. He congratulated him and other participants of the operation on eliminating a group of Byutukayev’s criminals. We are talking about the so-called last emir of Chechnya, a well-known terrorist who has been wanted for a long time. They searched for him both in Ingushetia and in Chechnya within the framework of the operation under the auspices of the NAC [the National Antiterrorism Committee]," the spokesman clarified.
He noted that all participants of this operation will receive state awards.
"Structures of the Russian National Guard as well as the operative regiment of the Chechen Republic took part in the operation, Ramzan Kadyrov also participated personally. <...> Currently, in Chechnya the identities of the eliminated militants are being established," TASS cited the Kremlin representative as saying.
As Kadyrov reported earlier on Wednesday on his Telegram channel, six militants from Byutukayev’s gang, including its leader, were eliminated in Chechnya. Kadyrov noted that "it’s all over for the militant underground in the Chechen Republic."
