The gunmen were planning to carry out “high-profile terrorist attacks using self-made explosive devices,” the FSB said [Xinhua]Russia’s FSB security police said on Monday it has arrested seven Islamic State militants in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg who were planning terrorist attacks in Moscow, St Petersburg and the Urals, Russian agency Interfax reported.
The group was led by an Islamic State fighter who had arrived from Turkey, the FSB said.
No further details have yet been provided by the FSB.
The group included Russian nationals and citizens of Central Asian states, who were also planning attacks in the Sverdlovsk region in the Urals, the FSB said.
“The group was led by a member of the above mentioned terrorist group who arrived from Turkey’s territory,” the FSB said.
A laboratory for making explosive devices was also uncovered during the search operation.
Russia’s proposal to be included in a broader coalition to combat the group was not accepted by the US.
Russia began airstrikes in September 2015 against Islamic State.
In northern Syria, President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, with the support of Russian airstrikes, are moving closer to recapturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.
State media said government forces had wrested a strategic hill in the eastern Aleppo countryside from Islamic State.
The five-year conflict that has killed at least 250,000 people across the country and driven 11 million from their homes.
TBP and Agencies
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