Russian authorities say they have killed three militants in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Daghestan.
Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee (NAK) said on May 4 that the militants were killed overnight during an operation in Daghestan's central Kizilyurt District.
According to NAK, all three slain militants had been involved in attacks against police officers as well as extortion schemes.
NAK said one the militants killed in the operation, Umar Sabuyev, was a leader of a criminal organization called the Kizilyurt gang.
Daghestan has become the epicenter of violence for militants seeking to establish an Islamic state in the North Caucasus.
It also is affected by deadly violence linked to criminal groups and to an Islamist insurgency rooted in separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya during the 1990s.
Police and government officials often are targeted in attacks.
