WASHINGTON, March 25-- The United States on Wednesday slapped sanctions on a Russian national for leading a terrorist group in the Russian North Caucasus.

The State Department branded Aliaskhab Kebekov as a specially designated global terrorist, a move that entailed sanctions that freeze all of his assets on U.S. soil and bar Americans from doing business with him.

The agency described the man as the current leader of the Caucasus Emirate, a group already blacklisted by Washington as a specially designated global terrorist entity for its operations in the Russian North Caucasus.

In the summer of 2014, Kebekov issued a video statement proclaiming his group's "structural subordination" to al-Qaida and expressing its readiness to "execute orders and instructions from al-Qaida's leaders," the department said in a statement.

It noted that Kebekov had reportedly ordered the killing of Sheikh Said-Afandi Chirkeyskiy, a prominent moderate religious leader in the Russian Republic of Dagestan.

The Russian man is blacklisted as well by the United Nations 1267/1989 al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, a move that requires all member states to implement an assets freeze, a travel ban and an arms embargo against him.