MOSCOW: Russia’s FSB security service said on Sunday it had killed an “emir” of the militant Islamic State group in the North Caucasus along with four other militants in a raid in the Dagestan region.

The FSB said in a statement that “among the neutralised bandits was the head of the Caucasus region’s branch of the Islamic State Rustam Aselderov, and four of his close associates.”

The FSB said that Aselderov was involved in 2013 blasts in the southern Russian city of Volgograd which killed 34. He was fighting for another Caucasus insurgent group at the time. It also linked him to twin car blasts in Dagestan in 2012 that killed 14 and injured at least 120.

The 35-year-old warlord pledged allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in December 2014, the first major militant to do so in the Caucasus. IS has since claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on police in Dagestan.

In 2015 the US Department of State imposed sanctions on Aselderov as a “foreign terrorist fighter” after the jihadist group appointed him leader of its North Caucasus franchise.

IS named Aselderov, also known as Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Qadari, the governor of a new province after Islamist militants in the region pledged allegiance to the jihadist group. The Russian North Caucasus is one of the major sources of foreign jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2016