NAC: 49 militants killed during large-scale special operation in Northern Caucasus

The National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC) reported on the elimination of 49 militants during a special operation in several republics of Northern Caucasus. The NAC's figures comply with the trend of statistics, recorded by the "Caucasian Knot" in September and October, earlier in 2012 and in the previous 2011.

According to the NAC's report, presented during the meeting of the President of the Russian Federation with the leaders of law enforcement agencies on the status of work to combat terrorism, held on October 16, the special operation was conducted "in September and in October". The exact time frames of the special operation were not disclosed.

According to calculations of the "Caucasian Knot", based on data from open sources, which include earlier released data of law enforcement agencies, in September, at least 35 suspected members of the armed underground were killed. On October 1-7, 9 suspected members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) were killed, all of them in Dagestan.

The NAC's figures also do not contradict the trends, shown in the statistics of the "Caucasian Knot" for longer periods. Thus, in the first half of 2012, in the period from January 1 till June 31, at least 190 persons, declared to be members of the armed underground, were killed, and in January-June 2011, 227 persons, declared to be members of IAFs, were killed. Proceeding from the above statistics, every two months in the first half of 2012, the armed underground lost an average of 63 members, and in the first half of 2011 an average of 76 members.

Meanwhile, it is not possible to verify in detail the NAC's figures on individual cases of killing members of the armed underground. According to the NAC, the number of killed persons includes nine leaders of IAFs; however, the report lists only six names of persons, who, according to the official data, were the leaders of the armed underground.