Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said Monday that 30 Chechen militants were killed in a counter-terrorist operation in Russia's southern region of Stavropol.

The militants, who were loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, had participated in the terrorist attack in the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk in June 1995, during which Chechen rebels held 1,500 people hostage in a hospital and left 150 people, including policemen, soldiers and civilians, dead and 415 others injured, the Interfax news agency quoted Shepel as saying.

Shepel said the government has information about 195 rebels involved in the Budyonnovsk attack and has placed 40 of them on the federal wanted list.

So far, twenty of the assailants who participated in the Budyonnovsk attack have been put on trial and have received long prison sentences, while another was extradited from Belarus last month, the official added.

Source: Xinhua