MAKHACHKALA, Russia — Russian police says it has arrested three suspected Islamic militants who aided a female suicide bomber that killed an influential Muslim leader in Russia's violence-plagued province of Dagestan
Said Afandi, the powerful
leader of Dagestan’s Sufi Muslim brotherhood, was killed in August along
with six other people by the bomber, who approached his house disguised
as a pilgrim.
Provincial police spokesman, Vyacheslav Gasanov,
said the three suspects were arrested Wednesday. He said they had
escorted the bomber, an ethnic Russian woman who converted to Islam
after marrying an Islamist.
Afandi’s killing followed a string of
attacks on moderate Muslim leaders in the southern Caucasus region who
have publicly denounced the spread of radical Islamic groups known as
Salafis.
Dagestan lies between Chechnya and the oil-rich Caspian.
