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Members of IS cell detained in western Russia admit preparations for terrorist attacks

The leader of the call took military training on the territory of Syria and came back to Russia for organizing terrorist activities

MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. Four members of a dormant cell of the Islamic State terrorist grouping who were detained near Kaluga, a city 180 km to the southwest of Moscow, have admitted preparations for terrorist attacks, the public relations center of the FSB federal security service said.

"The detained individuals have been taken to Tyumen where they will undergo the appropriate investigation and operative procedures in the framework of the criminal case instituted against them under Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code," the center said in a report. "In the course of interrogation, they gave confessionary evidence on involvement in the activities of a banned organization and on preparations for terrorist attacks."

The FSB said on Wednesday the four detained members of the dormant IS outlet were residents of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, an Arctic region in northwestern Siberia.

Leading the cell was an amir [group leader] who had taken military training on the territory of Syria and who had come back to Russia for organizing terrorist activities.

"A man from the IS, who was in Syria, contacted me and offered me to commit a terrorist act," one of the detainees said.

"The IS amir instructed me to commit a terrorist attack," another man said.

"We have instructions from the IS to engineer one or another terrorist attack," one more member of the cell said.