MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. The Federal Security Service (FSB) in Karachay-Cherkessia has taken radical Islamists into custody who were promoting the rejection of national laws and the creation of the so-called caliphate.

As the FSB Public Relations Center informed TASS, "on the territory of the Karachay-Cherkessia Republic five active members of the At Takfir wal-Hijra (outlawed in Russia) extremist religious organization were detained who were actively promoting radical dogma and recruiting new followers.

According to the FSB, they were urging religious adherents to ignore and repudiate the laws and institutions of civil society and sought to set up a theocratic Islamic state, a caliphate, on the territory of the North Caucasus.

"At their home addresses and at locations where they conducted clandestine meetings, 45 copies of brochures containing pseudo-religious extremist literature, 10 handwritten notes of lectures by radical preachers, a traumatic pistol converted to fire live ammunition and ammo to go with it, a sawed-off shotgun, a pneumatic pistol, and bladed weapons were uncovered and confiscated," the Public Relations Center stated.

Based on the evidence collected, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is pressing criminal charges under parts 1 and 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (The organization of extremist group activity or participation in it). "The detainees are giving statements of confession," the Center reported.

On September 15, 2010, the Russian Supreme Court declared the international religious group At Takfir wal-Hijra a terrorist organization. The extremist organization’s activities are outlawed in Russia.