MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian forces killed a separatist Chechen guerrilla commander believed to be involved in a deadly attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in 2011, officials said on Wednesday.
Aslan Byutukayev was one of six militants killed during a special operation in the village of Katyr-Yurt, some 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) south of Moscow, said Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Byutukayev is allegedly responsible for an attack that killed about 40 people in the arrivals hall of Domodedovo airport in 2011. He is also accused of participating in other attacks, including Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
The United States added him to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) in 2016.
“All the clandestine groups in Chechnya have been completely eliminated!” Kadyrov said on social media.
The dead were the last militants on a federal list of people wanted for terrorist activities in the region, he said.
The National Anti-Terrorism Committee confirmed that Byutukayev was killed in the operation, Russian news agencies reported.
President Vladimir Putin congratulated Kadyrov on the operation and said that everyone involved would receive state awards, the Kremlin spokesman said.
Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region, has been plagued by attacks on security officials and an insurgency since Moscow waged two wars with separatists after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Angus MacSwan)