Russian police forces launched a special operation on Thursday in a southern Russian region, killing seven suspected Islamic extremists including the head of a notorious terrorist group.

Police forces stormed a building in Nalchik, the capital of North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria near Chechnya, exchanging fires with militants hiding in the building, Interfax news agency reported.

Two female suicide-bombers and five guerrillas, including Muslim Atayev, the leader of the Yarmuk terrorist group, were killed in the operation which lasted for nearly seven hours, a source from the local Interior Ministry was cited as saying.

The operation was carried out as police failed to persuade the militants to voluntarily surrender after over 24 hours of negotiations with them.

The fundamentalist Islamic group is blamed for a clash with local police forces in August 2004, in which two policemen were killed and four others were wounded.

The gang is also said to be responsible for an attack on the Nalchik office of the Russian government drug watchdog on December 14, in which four policemen were killed and more than 250 pieces of firearms were stolen.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2005)