MOSCOW, March 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian security forces on Sunday killed a Chechen militant warlord in a special operation, the Chechen Interior Ministry said.

    Kantash Mansarov, leader of the extremist Jamaat group of Grozny, was killed in an operation in the morning, the ministry's spokesman Ruslan Atsayev was cited by Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

    Mansarov staged an armed resistance when the security forces were trying to detain him and was killed, Atsayev said, adding that an officer with the local security forces was injured in the skirmish.

    Mansarov was recently appointed "the emir" of Grozny in charge of rebel underground operations in the capital of Russia's Chechnya republic after his predecessor Yunadi Turchayev was killed a month ago.

    The warlord, who was involved in the killing of some federal forces, Chechen policemen and civilians, had a pistol and a submachin gun seized from a local policeman who had been killed by gunmen, Atsayev said.

    Riled by a series of bloody terrorist raids last year, including the twin crashes of passenger planes and the Beslan school hostage tragedy that left over 330 people dead, the Russian authorities have intensified operations against terrorists and rebel groups in the restive North Caucasus region that accommodates the breakaway Chechnya and some other Russian republics.

    Russia's special forces killed Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov Tuesday in northern Chechnya, while the latter's followers vowed to carry on their fight against Russia for "independence." Enditem