Russian Forces Detain Mayor In Dagestan MOSCOW - Commandos in armored vehicles surrounded the residence of the mayor of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, and arrested him on Saturday, bringing a swift end to his 15-year rule of one of Russia's most violent cities and to his ambition to eventually lead the region. The mayor, Said D. Amirov, 59, was detained in connection with the 2011 killing of a senior state investigator and will probably be charged under a statute that could send him to prison for life if he is convicted. Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's powerful Investigative Committee, said investigators were looking into whether Mr. Amirov and a group of associates were behind a series of other high-profile crimes. Mr. Amirov in many ways embodied the rough-and-tumble North Caucasus city he led, a place where brawls and gunfights are so standard that restaurant menus occasionally list the price of replacing damaged tables and chairs. Americans know Makhachkala as the place where Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, spent six months in the year before the attack, reportedly meeting with fighters from the region's insurgency. Mr. Amirov was famous for surviving an extraordinary number of assassination attempts - he claimed it was more than 15 - and has used a wheelchair since a bullet lodged in his spine in one such attack, in 1993. Newspaper reporters dubbed him "Said the Deathless." He is also believed to command a formidable private army, and Saturday's operation was carried out under conditions of military-style secrecy that ended only when Mr. Amirov was put on a helicopter bound for Moscow. The arrests of Mr. Amirov and 10 associates were prompted by testimony from the leader of an illegal armed group who, after being detained last week, said he had collaborated with the mayor, law enforcement officials told the Russian news media on Saturday. Among the people detained in connection with the case was Mr. Amirov's nephew, who is suspected of commanding a criminal group that sold narcotics and carried out murders, including of law enforcement officers, the Interfax news service reported. Mr. Amirov's removal and prosecution are likely to send ripples through Dagestan, where power is meticulously balanced between myriad warring clans, more than a dozen major ethnic groups and a variety of legal and illegal armed organizations. The Kremlin is focused on maintaining stability in the North Caucasus ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which is at the edge of the turbulent region. Konstantin Kazenin, a journalist and expert on the region, warned that Mr. Amirov had created a "deeply layered, branched, "totalitarian" business empire" in Makhachkala, and that his removal could have far-reaching consequences. "For many of the key figures of the empire, finding Amirov as mayor was the key to not only their personal prosperity, but also their security and freedom," Mr. Kazenin wrote Saturday in a column for the Regnum news agency. "Unless special decisions and arrangements are made, the urban economy of Makhachkala may well expect a "great upheaval." "