Russia Detains 7 Suspected of Planning Terrorist Attacks

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/world/europe/russia-terrorist-plot.html

Version 0 of 1.

MOSCOW — The main security agency in Russia said on Monday that it had detained seven people suspected of being members of a terrorist cell aligned with the Islamic State that was planning large-scale terrorist acts in Moscow and elsewhere in the country.

The agency, the Federal Security Service, said in a statement that the seven, who were detained in Yekaterinburg, a sprawling industrial city in the Ural Mountains, are citizens of Russia and Central Asian states, and that the cell was managed by a leader from Turkey.

While searching their apartments, law enforcement officers discovered an explosives laboratory equipped with firearms and grenades, the security agency said. Members of the cell planned to leave for Syria to fight alongside Islamic State militants after the attacks, it added.

At the end of September, President Vladimir V. Putin began an air campaign in Syria, and although he said the Russian strikes were intended to fight and prevent the rise of Islamic State militants, most of their targets have been rebels backed by the United States and its allies.

Hundreds of people were killed in terrorist attacks after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and an affiliate of the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a Russian jet being brought down over Egypt in October, killing all 224 people on board.

Video footage from Yekaterinburg, broadcast on the state-run news channel Rossiya 24, showed an apartment filled with what looked like detonators in boxes, powders in bags and liquids in bottles.

According to the TV report, members of the cell were planning simultaneous attacks on the subway systems of St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.

The initial plan was to strike Moscow, the report said, but the group looked for alternative targets after deciding that security measures in the capital were too tight.