Russia Detains Two Over Suspected IS ‘Terror’ Plot

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Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said on Thursday that it had detained two men from ex-Soviet Central Asia who were plotting to carry out stabbing and suicide bomb attacks in Moscow.

The FSB said the men were looking to strike “mass gathering places” in Moscow and the surrounding region on Friday, the first day of the Russian school year.

One of the suspects was arrested after posting a video of himself swearing allegiance to the Islamic State group and was intending to “attack civilians using bladed weapons”, the agency said in a statement.

A second alleged IS member was detained after a “powerful homemade explosive device” was discovered at his residence, the FSB said.

“He admitted that he intended to become a suicide bomber,” it said.

Russia has repeatedly been threatened by Islamic State jihadists over its intervention in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.

The group has claimed responsibility for two recent stabbing attacks in Russia, but authorities have played down the group’s possible involvement.

On Monday, two men stabbed a policeman to death and wounded another in Dagestan in Russia’s North Caucasus before being shot dead by police.

And on August 19, a man stabbed seven people on the street in the northern city of Surgut before being shot and killed.

In the deadliest recent attack, a group suspected of links to Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for an attack on the Saint Petersburg metro that killed 15 people, which has been blamed on a Russian suicide bomber born in Kyrgyzstan.