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Russia’s FSB thwarts activity of online cells raising funds for IS

The FSB conducted 27 searches in Russia among members of Internet community linked to the IS group

MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has prevented the activity of the international Internet community cells promoting the ideas and raising funds for the Islamic State terrorist group (outlawed in Russia).

"The Federal Security Service in cooperation with the Russian Interior Ministry has identified and thwarted the activity of cells of the international online community "Rohnamo ba sui davlati Islomi" (translated as A Guide to Islamic State from Tajik) in the Sverdlovsk, Tyumen and Chelyabinsk regions set up to promote terrorist ideology and recruiting gunmen to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant," the FSB Public Relations Center has told TASS.

"The FSB’s investigative department has opened criminal cases against the cell’s leader and three of its members over organization of activities of a terrorist organization and involvement in it," the FSB said.

FSB conducts 27 searches in three regions

The FSB said it has carried out 27 searches among members of cells of an Internet community spreading ideas of the Islamic State terrorist group and collecting funds for it.

The searches in the homes of members of the Rohnamo community were conducted on Wednesday in the Sverdlovsk, Tyumen and Chelyabinsk regions in Russia’s Urals, the FSB said.

"Computers, mobile phones containing propaganda video materials of terrorists, extremist literature, bank cards and also weapons including three guns, four grenades, some 500 grams of plastic-based explosives, five TNT blocks with the weight of 1 kg and electric detonators were seized," it said.

Cell members used encrypted data

The Rohnamo cell comprises more than 100,000 members from among immigrants from Central Asia in Russia and abroad, primarily in CIS member-countries, the FSB explained. It is coordinated by dozens of terrorist middlemen located in Russia, the Middle East and North Africa (above all, in Syria, Iraq and Egypt) using Internet software to encrypt and anonymize the transferred data to carry out various clandestine plots."