NAC announces arrest of organizers of Said Afandi's murder in Dagestan

A special operation conducted on December 8 in the Untsukul and Gumbetov Districts of Dagestan resulted in detention of three persons-organizers of the terror act against Sheikh Said Afandi; they all gave confessions, the Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC) reports today.

Said Afandi was killed on August 28 by an explosion triggered in his house in the village of Chirkey, Buinaksk District of Dagestan. The bomb was set in motion by a female suicide bomber and killed eight persons in total.

According to the NAC, the killing of Afandi was organized by Shikhmirza Labazanov, born in 1982, Magomedali Amirkhanov, born in 1976, and Magomed Gadjiev, born in 1989. All of them, as the NAC asserts, were members of the "Gimry bandit grouping" and were detained during a special operation conducted in the settlements of Shamilkala and Ashilta, Untsukul District, and of Chirkata, Gumbet District. The detainees, according to the NAC, provided the cover and escorted the suicide bomber to the site of the terror act, the RIA "Novosti" reports with reference to the NAC.

According to the NAC, the main organizer of the murder of Afandi was Magomed Suleimanov, the religious leader of the armed underground and a native of the village of Gimry. The murder was aimed at "inciting religious opposition in the region among the Muslims practicing different trends of Islam," the "Interfax" quotes the statement of the Information Centre of the NAC.