MOSCOW, March 7. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Security Service said it prevented an armed attack on congregants of a Moscow synagogue by members of the Islamic State (designated as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia).
"On the territory of the Kaluga Region, a stop was put to the activity of Wilayat Khorasan, a cell of the Afghan branch of the international terrorist organization Islamic State, which is banned in Russia, whose members were planning to commit a terrorist act against one of the Jewish religious institutions in Moscow," the agency, also known as the FSB, said in a statement.
While gathering information, they caught the attention of the security service.
"Further active search measures established that they were militants of an international terrorist organization preparing an attack on the congregation of a synagogue with the use of firearms," the FSB said. "During an operation to detain them, the terrorists put up armed resistance to Russian FSB staff and as a result were neutralized by return fire."
The FSB office for the Kaluga Region is investigating the case as conspiracy to conduct a terrorist attack. A search of the accommodation used by the radicals revealed firearms, ammunition and components for making an improvised explosive device.