"Planned resonant terrorist attack": FSB detained militant "Islamic State" in Nalchik

Employees of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation detained in Nalchik a member of the Islamic State terrorist group *, which had previously been part of the Baksan gang. The FSB and the police conducted a joint special operation in the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria on Thursday, April 25.

According to the Public Relations Center of the FSB of Russia, the fighter planned to carry out a resonant terrorist attack using an improvised explosive device made by him. IEDs, as well as extremist literature and other evidence of the radical’s involvement in the preparation of the attack, were found in his home. Explosive device eliminated.

“According to available data, the detainee was previously part of the so-called Baksan gang, at the direction of the ringleaders of which he was engaged in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices similar to those seized used in the attack on the Baksan hydropower station in 2010 and undermining law enforcement officers in the CBD from 2009 to 2012, ”the press service of the FSB reported.

The Baksan bandit group was part of the United Vilayat Kabardy, Balkaria and Karachai group in force in the North Caucasus **. Nine of its members on July 21, 2010 committed a terrorist attack on the Baksan hydroelectric station. The victims of the attack were two employees of private security, and the hydrotechnical facility itself was incapacitated for 2.5 years - after the sabotage, it was seriously modernized.

The FSB Public Relations Center noted that after the neutralization of the leaders and active members of this gang, the detainee in Nalchik “established secret contacts with the moderators” of the IG in Syria. From them he received instructions to prepare and conduct a terrorist attack.

Investigators of the FSB Directorate in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic opened a criminal case on the fact of preparations for the terrorist act. Specialists of the competent authorities conduct further operational-search activities.

Antiterrorist activities

The special operation in Nalchik has become another successful anti-terrorism event on the account of Russian special services lately. So, at the beginning of the week in Grozny and Makhachkala, the activities of the secret cell of the supporters of the “Islamic State” were suppressed, who were preparing attacks on police officers in Kaspiysk and Grozny.

Also in Primorsky Krai, the cell of the terrorist organization “Jamaat Tauhid wa Jihad” ***, which included four people from the Central Asian region, was liquidated. They financed terrorist structures, planned to conduct a series of assaults on merchants, and then go to Syria to take part in hostilities on the side of the radicals.

In addition, on April 12, during the counter-terrorist operation in Tyumen, two supporters of the Islamic State were liquidated. On the proposal to lay down their arms and surrender to the authorities, the extremists opened fire on the security forces, after which they were destroyed. According to the FSB, the militants planned to organize a terrorist attack in crowded places.

According to the director of the Federal Security Service, Alexander Bortnikov, the complex of measures undertaken by the security forces has made it possible in recent years to significantly reduce the number of terrorist crimes in Russia.

“The complex of adopted organizational, preventive and forceful measures made it possible to reduce the number of committed crimes of a terrorist nature by almost a hundred times: from 779 in 2010 to nine in 2018.” said Bortnikov, speaking at the opening of the Conference on Countering International Terrorism under the auspices of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly St. Petersburg.

Earlier, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee reported that, in 2018, only 37 terrorist cells were stopped in Russia and 65 militants were eliminated.

* “Islamic State” (IG, ISIL) - the organization is recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 2014.

** “United Vilayat of Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachai” is an organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic dated 07/09/2010).

*** “Mudzhaheds of Jamaat Al-Tavkhid Val-Jihad” (“Jamaat Tauhid v Jihad”, “Jamaat al-Tauhid Val-Jihad”) - the organization was recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Moscow Regional Court of April 28, 2017.