One of four alleged Islamic militants slain by law enforcers in Dagestan on Thursday was a former police officer who already quit the insurgency once, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said.
Sidik Aliyev and three others were shot dead by return fire when they attacked police officers who stopped their Mercedes SUV for a check, the report said.
Aliyev had a track record of supplying the militants with food and firearms and providing them with transportation, the committee said. He surrendered to authorities in 2006, turning up a handgun, and received a pardon, but continued to support the Islamist rebels in the North Caucasus republic, the report said.
Police identified another dead militant as Kazimagomed Shibayev, an arms dealer who was providing rebels with firearms since the early 1990s and served a two-year prison term over it.
Officers found plenty of arms in the SUV, including an automatic rifle, a rocket launcher, a handgun, several grenades, 700 bullets and explosives worth three kilograms of TNT.
