Eight members of extremist cells have been arrested in connection with last week's deadly bombing on the subway in St Petersburg, Russia's intelligence chief said yesterday
Moscow: Eight members of extremist cells have been arrested in connection with last week's deadly bombing on the subway in St Petersburg, Russia's intelligence chief said yesterday.
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Akbardzhon Dzhalilov, a 22-year old Kyrgyz-born Russian national, has been identified as the bomber. Russian authorities have not reported his possible links to extremist groups, but an unidentified law enforcement official said investigators were checking information that Dzhalilov may have trained with the Islamic State group in Syria. He reportedly flew to Turkey in November 2015 and spent a long time abroad.
Alexander Bortnikov, chief of the FSB, the main successor to the KGB intelligence agency, said yesterday that six members of terror cells were detained in St Petersburg and two in Moscow in connection with the attack. Bortnikov said all of them hail from former Soviet Central Asian republics and that the police found a large amount of weapons and ammunition at their homes, adding, "The investigation showed that the operative work did not fully meet the threat from terrorist organisations".
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