MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. The Federal Security Service (FSB) together with Russia’s Investigative Committee have foiled the activity of a group of supporters of the Islamic State terrorist organization (outlawed in Russia) who have been sending militants to Syria and Ukraine, the FSB told TASS on Monday.

"The Federal Security Service, in cooperation with the Investigative Committee and the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring, busted a terrorist cell in the Urals and the North Caucasus federal districts, whose ringleader and 18 members had been operating a network covering several regions to ensure resource support for the IS international terrorist organization," the FSB revealed. Since last December, the cell’s chieftain and 10 of its members have been held in custody, the Investigative Committee reported.

According to the FSB and the investigators, members of the terrorist cell, tasked by IS agents, have been dispatching militants from Russia to Syria and Ukraine to fight against the Russian Armed Forces as well as for sponsoring terrorism and defending terror attacks.

The arrests took place in Dagestan and Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus as well as in the Tyumen and the Khanty-Mansiysk Regions in the Urals. Eight members of the cell who are currently active as part of the IS in Syria have been put on an international wanted list.

Communication and payment devices, as well as personal computers with uploaded photo-and video-recordings of their participation in IS combat operations in Syria and among Nazi units of the Kiev regime’s military in Ukraine were confiscated from them during searches, the FSB said. Two members of the terrorist cell were sentenced to extensive prison terms.