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Putin, CIS States Highlight Terrorism Efforts In Year-End Meetings, Vow To Keep Fighting

By Fuad Mukhtarli December 22, 2017

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Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu (left), President Vladimir Putin (middle), Aleksandr Bortnikov (right)

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told a group gathered to honor the country’s security services that the Kremlin remains committed to stamping out terrorist groups and will fight them at all levels.

"I want to stress: We will continue just as decisively in the future to neutralize hotbeds of international terrorism, operate together with other countries, with all who are ready to combat this global threat, who are prepared to engage in joint work and in the sharing of intelligence," Putin said on Wednesday during the 100th anniversary of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage, better known as Cheka and one of the predecessors to Russia’s modern-day Federal Security Service (FSB).

“We understand that this is an integral part of our history, the history of domestic special services,” said Putin.

Putin highlighted Russia’s role in Syria, where it has provided both intelligence assets as well as military forces to help embattled President Bashar Al Assad thwart opposition groups and terrorist outfits like the Islamic State, or ISIS.

"The timely provision of intelligence, the cutting of militants' supply lines, the disruption of their contacts and command systems were a worthy contribution to the efforts of the army and navy, and assisted in the routing of the main terrorist formation and the elimination of the base of operations from which they threatened Russia,” Putin said.

The FSB says it has foiled 18 major terrorist attacks in 2017 that were planned in places of mass congestion and at critical facilities. It also claims to have suppressed or eliminated threats from 56 clandestine terrorist cells, killed 78 terrorists and their accomplices, and arrested 1,018 “bandits,” according to FSB director Aleksandr Bortnikov, who was speaking at a board meeting of the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee.

One of the latest operations to counter terrorism according to the FSB chief, was in the Moscow region on December 12. According to Bortnikov, terrorists were plotting attacks in Moscow during New Years celebrations and the forthcoming presidential election in March.

"On 12 December, as a result of a special operation in Moscow region, the FSB thwarted the activity of a group of Central Asia natives who intended to commit terrorist attacks, including those involving suicide bombers, during New Year festivities and during the Russian presidential campaign," Bortnikov said.

Bortnikov noted that improvised explosive devices, guns and weapons were confiscated from suspected terrorists, and a terror lab was destroyed. He also said that between December 9-11, two clandestine terror groups, which were run from abroad by a leader of the Islamic State (IS), had been eliminated and another cell was destroyed in Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula.

In his remarks on Wednesday, Putin warned the security chiefs of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of international terror threats.

"The main threat to CIS states' citizens comes from international terrorist organizations active in Central Asia, in the Middle East, and in North Africa," Putin said in a written welcome message to the Council of Heads of Security and Special Services of the CIS states held in Moscow on December 19. He said terrorists are trying to use these regions as a foothold for expansion, recruiting, and training new fighters, sending them to destabilize the situation in other states.

According to Bortnikov, CIS member states’ security services successfully stopped channels through which terrorist groups were recruiting people to send to Syria.

"By our joint efforts, 11 channels for sending recruits to the zones of military activity in the Syrian Arab Republic have been discovered and shut down."

"Terrorist tactics are undergoing a change. The heads of international terrorist organizations are steering their associates toward a so-called autonomous jihad," he said.