Russia detains 19 militants planning attacks: Security service

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday it had detained 19 suspected militants planning attacks in the North Caucasus.

The FSB said it had seized a suicide belt, homemade bombs and automatic weapons from the suspects this month.

The 19 detainees, suspected members of the Takfir wal-Hijra Islamist group, were spread across the Rostov, Krasnodar and Karachay-Cherkessia regions, as well as Crimea, the peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

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Footage from the detentions published by Russian news agency RIA showed FSB operatives scaling an apartment building and entering through a window to detain a suspect.

Russia has repeatedly been targeted by militant groups, including in an attack on a train carriage in a St Petersburg metro tunnel in 2017.

In recent years, some parts of the North Caucasus have been plagued with militant attacks on security officials.

Reuters