MAKHACHKALA, Russia. Jan 28 (Interfax) - A man killed during a police operation in Dagestan, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus, has been identified as the 32-year-old number two figure in Dagestan's Islamist militant movement, the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee said.
"The man who was killed has been identified as Adam Guseinov, who was born in the village of Mutsaul and was the so-called 'commander of the Northern Front of the vilayat of Dagestan and the Emirate of the Caucasus,'" a spokesman for the Committee's operations branch for Dagestan told Interfax.
A woman killed in the same operation in the city of Khasavyurt, in which none of the police were hurt, was believed to have been Guseinov's common law wife. "She was armed with an assault rifle and put up resistance," the spokesman said.
According to the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, Guseinov joined the ranks of militants in 2003 and was trained in camps in Chechnya, including a camp for training suicide bombers. In 2004 he was put on the federal wanted list as a militant.
He was a member of various underground groups until 2007. In 2008 he moved to Dagestan and joined a group led by Askhab Bidayev, who was killed the same year, and then a group headed by Magomed Umalatov (nicknamed Al-Bara), the "emir of Dagestan," who was killed in December 2009.
Guseinov became the right-hand man of Israpil Validzhanov after that the latter was appointed as "emir of Dagestan." Simultaneously Guseinov became "commander of the Northern Front of the vilayat of Dagestan and the Emirate of the Caucasus."
"Guseinov headed groups of militants in the districts of Khasavyurt, Novolakskoye and Kazbekovsky," the spokesman said.
He said Guseinov had organized and took part in attacks on police and a 2010 assault on the head of administration of the Khasavyurt district, and that the militant was to blame for setting fire or blowing up stores and catering facilities.
Guseinov is also accused of organizing an attack in Khasavyurt city in October 2010 in which a suicide attacker bombed a major police station.
His militants are said to have tried to extort money from businessmen.