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Putin thanks Trump for intelligence that prevented St Petersburg terror attack
According to the Kremlin, the information shared by the CIA “helped to track, identify and detain a group of terrorists preparing to set off explosions in St. Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral, as well as in other public areas,” Interfax news agency reported. Mr Putin asked Mr Trump to relay his thanks to the director of the CIA and the intelligence officers who first received the information. Over the past several days, authorities in St. Petersburg have detained five individuals as part of a terrorism investigation. On Friday, authorities arrested Yevgeny Yefimov, who told a court that he has illegally manufactured explosives and intended to detonate them in Kazan Cathedral on Dec. 17. An associate of Yefimov’s was detained on Saturday in connection to the plot. Three more were arrested on Sunday as part of the investigation. They have been identified in the Russian press as Shamil Omargadzhiyev of Russia’s Dagestan region, Alishkhan Esmurziyev of Russia’s Ingushetia region, and Firuz Kalavurov, a citizen of neighboring Tajikistan. The Federal Security Service (FSB) on Friday also said it had arrested seven members of an Islamic State cell. The agency made a point in its statement of highlighting that the cell was being directed from abroad via Telegram, a popular encrypted messaging app — leading some to speculate the arrests could be used as a pretence to crack down on the application’s use. Earlier this year, in April, a suicide bomber attacked the St. Petersburg metro. A second, unexploded device was found in a metro station in another part of the city. The attacks highlighted a growing threat of terrorism in Russia, as many Russian-speaking Islamic State fighters began to try to return home from the battlefields of Syria. Mr Putin, according to the Kremlin, told Mr Trump that Russia’s security services would “undoubtedly and without delay” share information pertaining to terrorist threats against the U.S. and its citizens in the future. Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-12-17 |
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