FSB special forces today destroyed a cell of the international terrorist organization Katiba Tawhid wal-Jihad, banned in Russia, which planned to undermine the Motherland monument in Volgograd.
The official website of the FSB reports this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The militants, immigrants from Central Asia, tried to remove explosives from the cache and put up armed resistance. The gang leader and his accomplice were killed during arrest. There are no losses among FSB employees.
Firearms, ammunition, chemical components and submunitions for IEDs, as well as literature of a religious extremist nature were found at the site of the counter-terrorism operation. A map of Volgograd with marks of planned “places for committing sabotage and terrorist acts” was also found.
The terrorists' targets were to be government buildings, military dormitories, and industrial enterprises that use hazardous chemicals.
At the same time, other members of the terrorist cell were detained in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Ufa, Volgograd and Maikop. It is assumed that the militants' actions were controlled from Syria.
Representatives of the Russian Investigative Committee previously named this international group as the organizer of the terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro in 2017.