Terrorist attacks according to 'Paris scenario' prevented in Russia

Russian and Kazakh special services have curbed a series of terrorist attacks according to the Paris scenario,  the head of Russia's Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov said.

"The work of a criminal group whose members planned to carry out terrorist attacks in large Russian cities was curbed," RBTH cited Bortnikov as saying.

He also said a Russian citizen who was put on the international wanted persons list for involvement with an international terrorist organization, who also fought in Syria and planned to hide in one of the European countries, has been located and detained.

The president of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terrorism Unit, Sergey Goncharov, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, reminded that the European security services are currently working in very difficult conditions. "There are 1.1 million migrants in Germany, all of them are alleged Syrian refugees, but actually only 30% are from Syria, while the rest come from other Middle Eastern countries. Can you imagine how much information intelligence agencies must possess to identify terrorists or those who will be used by terrorists later," he noted.

According to the expert, Russia is in a more advantageous position. "Today we do not see such a volume of people who pose a certain extremist threat. And our operative intelligence work allows us to prevent terrorist attacks. Recently, there were about 15 arrests of those who were preparing attacks and those who were printing false documents for transportation of people to Daesh, or, other way around, from Daesh to Russia," the president of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terrorism Unit said.

"So at the moment I believe that our security services have achieved certain progress in this sphere," the expert stressed.

Goncharov noted that, if you do not go into the details, there can be only one methodology of combating terrorism. "This is a major operative work and infiltration of illegal armed groups," he said.

"All of the intelligence agencies are aware of it. That is why Europeans are beginning to combine their special services to combat terrorism in the EU. I think that they have neglected the situation for too long, and it will be difficult for them to make up for the time lost," Sergey Goncharov concluded.