– ALLEGED TERROR PLOT THWARTED IN RUSSIA

Russian counter-terrorism agents, ON 05/20/2013, have carried out a raid on a group planning a terrorist act in Moscow killing two suspects, Russian officials said. A third suspect was held in the raid. One agent was slightly hurt.The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the group was located in a house in the town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, 85 k”m east of the capital.

The suspects are said to be Russian citizens who had undergone training in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The committee statement said: “During an active special operation the bandits were cut off, but when they were called on to surrender they opened fire.”

An unnamed official sources told Russian news agencies the group’s target was a mass event in central Moscow, but further details were being withheld while the plot was investigated.

All three were Muslims and had been under observation for a month, another source told Interfax news agency, adding that they had been trained in North Waziristan, FATA Region ,a mountainous region of north-west Pakistan and a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants.

The authorities are investigating possible links between the suspects and the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan – IMU, the source said.

Meanwhile on the same day Twin car bombings in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s volatile Dagestan republic, killed three people and injured at least 44 more, most of them police officers, officials said (aee also the profile of Tamerlan Tsarnaev).

 

 

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