AKIPRESS.COM - A former Islamic State warlord suspected of masterminding a deadly attack on Istanbul airport in 2016 is believed to have been killed during a special operation in ex-Soviet Georgia last week, three sources familiar with the case told Reuters.

Akhmed Chatayev, an ethnic Chechen, is highly likely to have lost his life during a police operation against a group of armed men on the outskirts of the Georgian capital Tbilisi last week, the three sources said.

One Georgian special forces serviceman and three members of the armed group, which was suspected of terrorism, were killed in the operation. Four police officers were wounded and one member of the group was arrested during the 20-hour operation at the apartment block where the group was hiding.

“We suspect that one of the gunmen killed in the special operation in Tbilisi could be Akhmed Chatayev,” Nino Giorgobiani, deputy chief of the state security service, told Reuters on Tuesday.

She said that the final conclusions would be reached after experts had completed their work and “the relevant United States agencies (had) joined the investigation.”

Two other sources, who did not want to be named, told Reuters it looked very likely Chatayev had been killed.

“There is every indication that one of them (members of the group) was Chatayev,” said one of the sources.