Alwaght- Russian security forces have arrested members of an extremist group affiliated ot the ISIS terrorist group.
According to local security sources the five terrorists were detained by the Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the town of Pallasovsk, Volgograd Region.
The detained were members of the so-called 'Pallasovsky Jamaat' group, which “was involved in recruitment… of residents of the region to participate in activities of ISIS international terrorist organization,” the FSB added.
According to the agency, one of the members of the group “planned to stage a terror attack in the [Volgograd] region.”
“Ammunition, explosives as well as other chemical compounds and striking elements for improvised explosive devices, literature of religious and extremist nature were found and seized at their place of residence,” the FSB said in the statement.
A criminal case “on organization of an illegal armed group or participation in one” has been launched against the detained Pallasovsky Jamaat members.
Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is a city of around 1 million people on the Volga River, not far from Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, has seen a series of suicide attacks in the past three years.
In October 2013, a terrorist blew herself up on a bus, killing six people and injuring more than 30 others.
On December 29 of the same year, 18 people died and 44 were wounded at the Volgograd train station in another suicide blast. The next day, an explosion rocked a trolleybus, killing 15 passengers and injuring over 30 others.
Early February Russian security forces arrested seven ISIS terrorists who were planning attacks on several cities across the country, including the capital Moscow.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said the seven were detained in the city of Ekaterinburg in the Urals Region and that they were preparing terror acts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The leader of the group came to Russia from Turkey.
After terror acts in Russia’s two largest cities, as well as the Sverdlovsk Region, where the city of Ekaterinburg is located, members of the terror group planned to flee to Syria where parts of territory are under control of ISIS.
The gunmen were planning to carry out "high-profile terrorist attacks using self-made explosive devices," the FSB said, as reported by Russian media.
Russia has had problems in the past with terrorism within its borders and in particular, Chechnya. Chechen fighters who have joined ISIS in Syria, have now threatened to take the fight to Moscow. Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria’s Al Qaeda faction, have also called for terror attacks in Russia. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said that it is better to fight terrorists in Syria than wait until they return to Russia.
