Recruited in Turkey, caught in Russia – Islamic State bomber planned to carry suicide attack in India

Russia on Monday announced detaining a suicide bomber of the Islamic State who planned to carry out a terrorist attack against “one of the representatives of the ruling circles” of India.

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB RF) revealed further that the detained terrorist was recruited in Turkey between April to June 2022 and then processed using the Telegram messenger “and at personal meetings in Istanbul” with one of the IS leaders.

“A member of the international terrorist organisation Islamic State, banned in the Russian Federation, a native of a country in the Central Asian region, who planned to commit a terrorist act against one of the representatives of the ruling circles of India by self-detonation, was identified and detained on the territory of Russia,” FSB’s Centre for Public Relations said in a statement today.

It added that the terrorist “swore allegiance to the ISIS amir”, after which he was given the task of leaving for Russia, completing the necessary documents and flying to India to carry out the attack.

A successor of the Soviet-era KGB, the FSB takes care of Russia’s national security, counterterrorism, the protection and defence of the state border, internal sea waters, the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf and their natural resources along with coordinating the counterintelligence efforts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who also served as FSB Director in Boris Yeltsin’s administration in the 1990s, oversees the agency’s work.

The FSB also released a video where the detained terrorist gave details of his plan.

“In 2022… I flew to Russia, from where I was supposed to leave for India. In India, I was supposed to be met and given all the necessary things to commit a terrorist attack on the orders of the Islamic State for insulting the Prophet Muhammad,” the detainee said, according to Russian daily Izvestia.

Also Read: India finds fault with UN terror report for ignoring Afghanistan as Islamic State hub

Over the years, Turkey has become a hotbed for several terrorist groups espousing a range of violent extremist and ethnonationalist political ideologies.

In its last ‘Country Reports on Terrorism’ in 2020, the US Department of State stated that Turkey is a source and transit country for Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) seeking to join ISIS and other terrorist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq, as well as for FTFs who seek to depart Syria and Iraq.

On August 10, the Counter Terrorism Command of London’s Metropolitan Police Service arrested a 38-year-old man at Luton Airport after he arrived into the United Kingdom on a flight from Turkey.

An alleged member of an Islamic State group cell nicknamed “The Beatles” that tortured and killed Western hostages was charged with terrorism offenses in Britain on Thursday after being deported from Turkey.

Aine Leslie Davis, an alleged member of an Islamic State group cell nicknamed ‘The Beatles’, has been charged with various terrorism offences

Several leaders from Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon, have also been voicing their concern over the terror sleeper cells getting active in the region after the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, it was only last Wednesday that National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval held talks with his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev in Moscow.

As reported by IndiaNarrative.com, the two seasoned security experts not only discussed a wide range of issues of bilateral cooperation in the field of security but also the practical measures to counter challenges and terror threats emanating from the region.

Also Read: NSA Doval holds talks in Moscow as India bonds with Eurasia