Eleven militants affiliated to the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group have been killed by security forces in Russia’s North Caucasus region.

“According to preliminary information, 11 bandits have been neutralized,” Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said in a statement cited by TASS news agency on Sunday.

“All of them were participants in an armed gang whose members swore loyalty to IS,” added the statement, using another acronym for Daesh.

The militants, who were cornered in a forest area outside the city of Nalchik in the Kabardino-Balkaria region, had launched an attack against the security forces, according to the anti-terrorism committee.

Earlier this month, Russia announced that its security forces had killed the leader of a Daesh-linked group of militants in the Kabardino-Balkaria region in North Caucusus.

The North Caucasus militants had previously been united together under a local so-called Caucasus Emirate militant organization; however, they are now joining Daesh, which declared in June that it had established a franchise there.

An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 militants hailing former Soviet countries have joined Daesh, which is mainly operating in Syria and Iraq, according to Russian President Vladamir Putin.

The Daesh Takfiri group in Syria has been the target of an aerial campaign by Russia.

The terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Russian passenger jet last month, which killed all the 224 people on board. Russia has since intensified its attacks against Daesh in Syria.

Daesh is also responsible for the November 13 attacks in the French capital of Paris, as well as twin bombings in the Lebanese capital a day earlier.