The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has apprehended members of the ISIS terror group, involved in recruiting and sending people to Syria, in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan, the FSB press service said.
"The Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry have exposed a cell of the ISIS international terrorist organization, involved in recruiting and sending radicalized residents of Dagestan to Syria to participate in military activities," TASS cited the press service as saying.
On March 5, the cell founder and his four accomplices were apprehended in Dagestan’s capital of Makhachkala. According to the FSB, they "induced at least four people into leaving Russia to train at the ISIS’s camps."
The FSB sources also said that during a special operation, law enforcers had seized a large amount of explosives, firearms and munitions that IS members had illegally acquired planning to carry out terror-related crimes in the North Caucasus Federal District.
Chief research associate, director of the Educational and Scientific Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical and Ethno-Cultural Processes of the Russian State University for the Humanities, Magomed Omarov, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, said that there are two reasons for terrorists returning from the Middle East to the North Caucasus.
"On the one hand, Russia and other countries are actively fighting against those who left for ISIS, as a result, a significant part of these people are returning home illegally, since they have nowhere else to go," he said.
On the other hand, according to the expert, there are certain forces that work with terrorists and sent them to destabilize the situation in Russia, in particular, in Dagestan. "I do not exclude that some special services of other countries are engaged in such work. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in one of his speeches about the West supporting certain groups, on which the US bet to further strengthen tension in Syria," Omarov recalled.
"There is a very uncompromising, tough struggle and a work to prevent young people from supporting these organizations. In addition, there is an improvement in the socioeconomic situation in Dagestan and other republics, which should significantly weaken the positions of both militants and recruiters," the expert stressed.
Director of the RSUH Educational and Scientific Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical and Ethno-Cultural Processes drew attention to the need for an integrated fight against manifestations of terrorism. "Detentions in Makhachkala mean that the special services have stepped up this work on their part. On the other hand, it is necessary to ensure, and that's what the authorities do, conditions, so that young people do not have the desire to join some destructive organizations," Magomed Omarov concluded.
