You're reading: Russia says seven militants killed in Chechnya

GROZNY, Russia, August 17 (Reuters) - Russian security forces killed at least seven suspected militants in Chechnya on Wednesday, a spokesman for the region's Moscow-backed leader said.

The Kremlin is struggling to contain a growing Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus and the violence has now spread from Chechnya to other mainly Muslim regions.

The government has credited Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, with maintaining a shaky peace, and security operations resulting in large numbers of deaths have become rare in recent years.

"According to preliminary information, seven militants have been killed," Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov told reporters in the Chechen capital Grozny.

He said an aide to high-ranking Chechen warlord Hussein Gakayev was among those killed near Vedeno, a village some 50 km (31 miles) south-east of Grozny.

Russia wants to turn the North Caucasus, where the 2014 Winter Olympics are to be held, into a tourist destination and cut unemployment which exceeds 50 percent in parts of the region, according to official statistics