Over 200 gunmen, including over 30 ringleaders, killed in N. Caucasus in Jan-Sept 2013 - prosecutor
PYATIGORSK. Nov 28 (Interfax) - Security forces conducted a series of successful special operations in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Kabardino-Balkaria in the first nine months of 2013, in which over 200 gunmen were killed, Andrei Medvedev, a deputy chief of the Prosecutor General's Office department for the North Caucasus Federal District, said at a press conference on Thursday.
"More than 30 ringleaders were killed in offering armed resistance and four detained," Medvedev said.
Over 200 members of illegal armed units were killed and over 250 detained in this period, he said.
The number of attacks on the lives of law enforcement officials and military servicemen in the North Caucasus exceeded 300 and remains "unacceptably large," he said.
Over 100 law enforcement officials were killed in these attacks, including over 70 in Dagestan and 20 in Chechnya, and over 300 were injured.
"Dagestan remains the center of extremist activities today, where the biggest number of serious and especially serious crimes is committed. A high level of terrorist threat remains in Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Kabardino-Balkaria," Medvedev said.
Sixty-nine extremist crimes were registered in the North Caucasus Federal District in January-September 2013, which is over 40% more than in the same period in 2012, he said.
