Addressing a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), said over 500 militants had been disarmed since the start of the year including 13 warlords, and that 150 militants had surrendered.
He said 35 people were convicted of terrorism in 2007. Three were sentenced to life in jail for involvement in terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro in 2004 and a series of bus-stop blasts in the southwest Russian city of Voronezh and the southern city of Krasnodar in 2003-2004.
The North Caucasus has been a volatile region since the demise of the Soviet Union, and although the Kremlin has broken the backbone of separatist forces in Chechnya, small militant groups are still active in the republic and adjacent areas.