Gunmen kill elite Russian commando head

MAKHACHKALA, Russia, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Two masked gunmen killed the commander of an elite Russian commando unit in the country's restive Dagestan republic Thursday, the local Interior Ministry said.

Lt. Col. Shapi Aligadzhiyev, commander of a Special Rapid Response Unit, or SOBR, was shot in the chest outside his apartment building in Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala, but killed one of his attackers when he returned fire, the ministry said.

Police searched for the other gunman, who fled the scene, the state-owned Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.

The ethnically diverse and religiously Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus region has been a scene of a growing Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism since the 1990s.

The militant Islamic organization Shariat Jamaat, part of the Caucasian Front of the Second Chechen War in 1999, is responsible for much of the violence, the non-profit, non-governmental International Crisis Group of Brussels said.

Impoverished Dagestan, dependent on subsidies from Moscow, has high unemployment and has become rife with corruption and organized crime, RIA Novosti said.

A 22-pound bomb found near a gas pipeline in Dagestan was defused Thursday, the Federal Security Service said. Gas supplies in the area were not disrupted.