MOSCOW, March 1: Russian authorities on Monday said they had killed Ruslan Gelayev, a top Chechen warlord who has been fighting Russian troops in and around the restive Caucasus republic for more than four years.

The body of a man who looked like Gelayev had been found in Dagestan, which borders war-torn Chechnya, after a fight that also left two border guards dead, law enforcement officials told Russian news agencies.

Previously-captured Chechen rebels have identified the body, which was found without documents in western Dagestan, as that of Gelayev, a rebel leader who has eluded Russia's attempts to capture or kill him for years.

"Two of previously-detained members of his illegal armed band have identified Gelayev's body," Sergei Fridinsky, deputy prosecutor, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Unsubstantiated reports of Gelayev's death have been reported several times since Vladimir Putin launched the current Russo-Chechen war in October 1999 as prime minister.

Among Gelayev's most spectacular exploits was the taking of the Komsomolskoye village in Chechnya in March 2000, shortly after Russian troops drove rebels from the capital Grozny.

After fierce fighting that lasted for days, federal forces eventually recaptured the village, killing hundreds of rebels, but Gelayev escaped into the mountains from where he is reported since then to have staged isolated raids against Russian targets.-APP