The backbone of terrorist groups in Russia is made up of migrants from the CIS countries, Russia's intelligence chief Alexander Bortnikov said at a session of the National Anti-Terror Committee.
He also said that eight members of extremist cells have been arrested in connection with last week's bombing on the metro in St. Petersburg: six members have been detained in St. Petersburg and two in Moscow. All of them are from former Soviet Central Asian republics, TASS reported.
He added that the police found a large amount of weapons and ammunition at their homes.
A total of 16 terrorist attacks involving citizens of CIS countries were prevented in Russia last year and 46 cells of international terrorist organizations were liquidated, he said.
"Last year alone, 16 terrorist attacks were prevented in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, Tula, Ufa, Sochi, Novosibirsk and Nizhny Novgorod," Bortnikov said, adding that citizens of CIS countries were participants of neutralized groups.
The Federal Security Service is implementing a set of preventive and operational search measures jointly with other law-enforcement agencies to prevent terror attacks, Bortnikov said.
Another important task is to counter the ideology of terrorism and the involvement of persons from among migrants and other vulnerable social groups into terrorist activity, the FSB chief stressed.
At the same time, efforts are needed to strengthen cooperation with foreign partners, raise the promptness of information exchange and take necessary measures for detaining criminals, the head of the National Anti-Terror Committee noted.
Bortnikov admitted that intelligence agencies have failed in tackling a terrorist threat.
"The investigation in the St. Petersburg metro attack showed that the operative work did not fully meet the threat from terrorist organizations," Bortnikov said.
"At present, a large amount of operational information is coming out indicating that leaders of terrorist groups operating in the Middle East as part of the so-called ISIS terrorist group banned in Russia are intent on carrying out terrorist attacks in various regions of the world, including in Russia. An example of which is the resonant terrorist attacks in the UK, Russia, Sweden and Egypt," Bortnikov noted.
