Russian police kills nine suspected Islamist militants
Russian police on Tuesday killed nine suspected Islamist militants including the leader of a group behind the killing of a religious leader in the volatile North Caucasus region, Russia's counterterrorism agency said.
The Kremlin is fighting to staunch an Islamist insurgency that has spread across the North Caucasus, near where Russia plans to hold the 2014 WinterOlympics in February.
Rooted in two separatist wars in the North Caucasus province of Chechnya since the fall of the Soviet Union, the insurgency is now at its bloodiest in neighbouring Dagestan, east of Chechnya, on the Caspian Sea.