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Number of terrorist attacks declines in Russia - Security Council head

GROZNY, March 19. /ITAR-TASS/. The number of terrorist attacks declined by 30% in Russia last year, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told in Chechen capital Grozny on Wednesday.

“Last year, we managed to reduce the number of terrorism-related crimes by almost 30%,” Patrushev said. “Out of 218 terrorism-related crimes in 2013, 214 were committed in the North Caucasus. Dagestan is currently the center of terrorist activity, with about 80% of such crimes fixed there last year. This is a very alarming fact,” he added.

Illegal armed groups in the North Caucasus were aiming not only to destabilize the situation in the North Caucasian Federal District, but also “to move terrorist activity beyond it,” he said, referring as an example to acts of terror in the Volga River city of Volgograd in October and in December.

The visiting session also discussed ways to stop the funding of terrorism in the North Caucasus and additional measures against extremism manifestations in Russian regions.

The Security Council head said about 30 facts of financing of terrorism and illegal armed formations operating in the North Caucasian republics of Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai Cherkessia had been exposed last year. This was not adequate to the scope of the problem, he regretted, adding that stable channels of financial support for illegal armed groups were being blocked at an insufficient pace.

“This criminal activity is basing on a broad network of emissaries and intermediaries,” he said, setting the task of “formulating conditions that will create serious obstacles for terrorists and their allies and will disorganize their activity”.