Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered...

The new group should be operational from April 19, the Kremlin press service said.

The president also ordered officials to prepare a proposal by the end of the month on a new program to combat crime and terrorist acts in the North Caucasus.

The Kremlin also said that Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, Security Council chief Alexander Bastrykin and the head of Kremlin administration, Sergei Naryshkin, had been given until May 15 to submit proposals to toughen punishments for accomplices of terrorists.

The orders follow an emergency meeting in Dagestan last week convened by Medvedev in response to terrorist attacks in Moscow and Dagestan that killed more than 50 people.

MOSCOW, April 7 (RIA Novosti)