Russian special forces killed five gunmen on Sunday, including an Arab rebel leader, in the southern republic of Dagestan which borders Chechnya, a Russian intelligence agent said. Special forces surrounded a house in Khasavyurt in the west of Dagestan in an early morning raid and killed three gunmen in an initial exchange of shooting. "The others were offered a chance to surrender," said Mikhail Merkulov the deputy head of Dagestan's FSB, Russia's intelligence service. "After receiving a negative reply the FSB soldiers broke into the house and shot two more gunmen. One of them was foreign terrorist-mercenary Abu Havs".Chechnya's Prime Minister and leader of its most powerful pro-Kremlin militia group, Ramzan Kadyrov, said Abu Havs's death would help bring stability to the region. "I believe that the liquidation of Abu Havs will be a positive influence on the situation not only in Chechnya but also in the whole region. In the last year he has been spending a lot of money on funding terrorist acts," Kadyrov told Interfax news agency.