Russian forces kill Islamist rebel leader: Newspaper

Russian security forces have killed a leader of an Islamist rebel group in the North Caucasus accused of plotting a botched suicide attack in Moscow, a Russian newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Ibragimkhalil Daudov was found dead in a forest on Tuesday after being wounded at the weekend in a shootout when police stormed a nearby house where he was hiding in the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan, the daily Kommersant said.

Daudov escaped after the shootout, in which four gunmen were killed, but suffered severe blood loss and froze to death, Kommersant quoted security officers as saying. Russian security forces were not immediately available to comment on the report.

Russia is struggling to contain a growing insurgency in the North Caucasus and is hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, a city close to areas that have been hit by violence. Daudov was a senior leader of the Caucasus Emirate, a rebel group that is fighting to carve out an Islamist state across the North Caucasus.

Russian investigators say Daudov brought his wife and another woman to Moscow in 2009 to carry out a suicide attack on Russians celebrating New Year's Eve near the Kremlin, but their bomb exploded hours earlier in a Moscow suburb. Daudov's wife was killed in the explosion and several people were arrested.   

(Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk)