Russian Security Forces have reported that Israpil Validzhanov, who is also known as Emir Khasan, was killed on the night of April 18. Validzhanov was appointed head of Dagestan’s Shariat Jamaat after his predecessor Magomedali Vagabov was killed in August 2010.

According to the head of the republic’s Department of Investigation, Validzhanov and three other men were stopped by officers from the Federal Security Service and the Dagestani Interior Ministry at a checkpoint outside the village of Tashkapur in central Dagestan. When the men were asked to identify themselves they reportedly opened fire from inside the two cars they were travelling in. The officers at the checkpoint responded by firing back and all four militants were killed in the encounter. Soon thereafter, the report of Validzhanov’s death was supported by Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee and the bodies of the four dead men were exhibited to the media. The Russian claims were later confirmed by sources loyal to the insurgency.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee has also stated that one of the other militants killed at the checkpoint has been identified as a cousin of the female suicide bomber Mariam Sharipova. According to Russian news sources, Sharipova was married to the former insurgency leader Magomedali Vagabov and she is said to have been one of the perpetrators in last year’s Moscow Metro bombings.

Israpil Validzhanov was born in 1968. He was an ethnic Dargin and a native of the village of Sanchi, near Derbent in the Southeastern part of Dagestan. Validzhanov is said to have been among those radical Dagestani Salafists who moved to Chechnya in the end of the 1990s. In Chechnya, he underwent military training and became a member of Saudi jihadist Emir al-Khattab’s so called International Islamic Brigade. According to the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, Validzhanov also participated in the Brigade’s invasion of Dagestan in the summer of 1999. Even though the invading force, which was led by al-Khattab and the notorious Chechen commander Shamil Basayev, did not manage to win the support of the civilian population in Dagestan, the episode helped to spark the second war in Chechnya.

After returning to Dagestan, Validzhanov played an increasingly influential part in the republic’s emerging rebel movement. He has been on Russia’s federal wanted list since 2006 and before becoming the head of the Shariat Jamaat, he was the leader of the southern sector of the insurgency movement.

Validzhanov is the seventh leader of the Dagestani rebel movement to be killed since the Dagestani Jamaat emerged as a militant insurgency structure about a decade ago. The last six leaders of the insurgency have all been killed within a period of less than four years. Furthermore, on January 27, Adam Huseynov, who was considered to be Validzhanov’s second in command at the time, was killed in a counterinsurgency operation outside the city of Khasavyurt. And on April 25, Gadzhiyav Gaziyev, leader of the highland sector of the insurgency, was reported to have been killed in the Tsumandinskiy province.

Although the death of Validzhanov and other high ranking militants is a considerable setback for the Shariat Jamaat, it is unlikely to have any significant effect on the overall security situation in the republic. The impact that the killings of leading figures have on the insurgency movement in Dagestan is reduced by both the decentralized structure of the armed resistance and the strengthened position of the ideology of the insurgency. Local Jamaats have the ability to continue their activities independently from the central leadership and experts have described Dagestan as a republic where the resistance movement has become embedded in society. The Salafi beliefs are slowly becoming a more accepted part of Dagestani society and the number of Salafi practitioners appear to be increasing.

Even though the Security Forces have been successful in finding and killing the leaders of the Dagestani Jamaat, the level of violence in the republic has not been decreasing during the last years. On the contrary, available statistics indicate that there has been a steady increase in the number of reported violent incidents since the beginning of 2010. This has led experts to view the high number of leading militants killed in Dagestan not only as a testament to the effectiveness of the Russian Intelligence Services but also as an indicator of the active character of the Dagestani insurgency.