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Al-Qaeda leader killed

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russian security forces killed an Al-Qaeda emissary in the North Caucasus in a mop-up operation on Sunday. Abu Hafs was killed along with four militants during a four-hour gun battle in Dagestan, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya, news wire reports said quoting a spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Dagestan. Abu Hafs took over from another Saudi-born Al-Qaeda emissary, Abu Walid, as the main foreign fundraiser for Chechen rebels after the latter was killed by Russian forces in 2004. Russian security officials said Abu Hafs had funded and helped organise all major terror attacks in the North Caucasus in the past two years, including the school carnage in Beslan, North Ossetia, in September 2004, in which over 340 persons died. The FSB spokesman said Abu Hafs was the last Al-Qaeda man in the North Caucasus. Two years ago FSB estimated there were about 10 Al-Qaeda operatives in the region.

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