6 suspected ISIS recruiters arrested after St. Petersburg attack
[RussiaToday] Six suspected ISIS and Al-Nusra Front recruiters, said to come from Central Asian countries, were detained in St. Petersburg days after the blast in the city’s Metro. President Putin says any post-Soviet country could be the target of a terrorist attack.
Six nationals of Central Asian countries were detained following a series of anti-terrorism raid by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) the Interior Ministry and National Guard in St. Petersburg, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The suspects, who came to Russia to seek employment, “have been recruiting people of Central Asian descent since 2015 in St. Petersburg to become followers of Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] and Al Nusra Front, and to carry out terrorist attacks,” the committee said.
Having searched the suspected recruiters’ flat, the security services also retrieved Islamist propaganda literature and documents, which may be a piece of intelligence worthy of further investigation.
While investigators will specifically try to uncover the men’s connections, it is not yet clear if they were in contact with the prime suspect believed to have set off a suicide bomb inside the St. Petersburg Metro earlier this week, the committee said.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the rising terrorist threat, affecting not only Russia, but also its allies in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – an organization embracing 11 former Soviet countries.
“Unfortunately, there is no sign that the security environment is improving, and tragic events in St. Petersburg are the best evidence of it,” Putin said while meeting chiefs of CIS intelligence agencies, as cited by TASS.
“We do know that each of our countries, almost every country, is a potential target of a terrorist attack,” he said. “Our countries are facing many other challenges, including organized crime and drug trafficking.
To tackle these threats, the allied security agencies should step up intelligence sharing and mutual ties, Putin said.
“We have a very good [intelligence] community, and we enjoy very good cooperation on addressing major challenges.”
‘Intelligent, sportsman, didn’t pray’: St. Petersburg bomber ‘showed no signs of radicalization’
[Russia Today] Parents, friends, colleagues and neighbors say that St. Petersburg bomber Akbarzhon Dzhalilov showed no signs of radicalization or religious fanaticism, describing him as “average,” “intelligent,” “a sportsman” and someone who “didn’t pray."
Dzhalilov rented an apartment in the north-eastern district of St. Petersburg, some 20km away from the scene of the attack, a month before the blast, after he returned from a trip to his home city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, Reuters reports.
The next day after the attack, security officials raided the apartment Dzhalilov had rented. An Investigative Committee spokeswoman told reporters that investigators found items in the apartment that were similar to the IED parts used in the unexploded device planted at the Ploshchad Vosstaniya station.The spokeswoman added that both the IED and the items found in the suspect’s apartment were sent for analysis.
Dzhalilov’s neighbors told Reuters that he was a quiet tenant. "The apartment was always silent," one of his neighbors said, adding that she “never heard ... any music playing.”“Maybe he turned on the TV once," she said.
According to the media, Dzhalilov was born in Osh, the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan, in the south of the country. He has a brother who is a student at a school in Osh, and a sister who is married. His father lived in St. Petersburg for quite some time and reportedly has Russian citizenship.
Dzhalilov didn’t have a Kyrgyz passport, Kyrgyz officials said. He was reportedly a minor when he moved to St. Petersburg with his father.
The consul general of Russia in Osh, Roman Svistin, told Sputnik Kyrgyzstan that Dzhalilov received his citizenship back in 2011. The decision was based on a law stating that citizenship can be given to those who have a Russian citizen as a parent. Dzhalilov’s father is currently living in Osh.
Muslim suicide bomber was radicalised two months ago on a trip to his native Kyrgyzstan
[DailyMail] Suicide bomber Akbarzhon Dzhalilov was radicalised just two months ago on a trip to his native Kyrgyzstan when he said goodbye to his parents ahead of the St Petersburg train massacre.
Sources say he flew in February and returned a completely different man.
Family friends in the city of Osk said Dzhalilov, an ethnic Uzbek, had 'golden hands' - as one revealed 'he could do any work, and do it very well' - but Russian law enforcement agencies are now urgently seeking to understand when he switched his skills from repairing cars and decorating houses to making bombs.
The killer's parents flew overnight to Russia from their native Kyrgyzstan to help a probe that needs to clarify if he was working alone or is part of a terror group plotting other explosions.
A source told the news agency Interfax he 'travelled to Kyrgyzstan for about a month and returned from there a completely different man.'He became unsociable and closed.
'Law enforcement agencies assume that Dzhalilov was recruited by extremists.'
'On his way back he did not go to Pulkovo (St Petersburg airport) as usual but to Moscow where he met somebody.
'It could have been the curator of the terrorist group or the real mastermind of the attack in the St Petersburg metro.'
Investigators are also examining a trip he supposedly made to South Korea three years ago.
'It is not excluded that in reality he was in Syria or Iraq,' said the newspaper.
Back in St Petersburg he was on the police radar - but only because he failed to pay traffic fines.
A family friend in Osh said: 'They are very good-minded and quiet family.
'The father used to go to the mosque on Friday, but none of them were ever religious fanatics.'
The bomber skilfully renovated the family home in Osh, making other neighbours jealous at the quality of his work.
His father worked in the car repair business in St Petersburg and six years ago took Dzhalilov to do the same job. Recently, the father returned permanently to Kyrgyzstan.