MOSCOW, December 30. /ITAR-TASS/. Spiritual leaders’ calls are no longer able to stop terrorists committing their dreadful crimes under the guise of religious motives, Farid Salman, head of the Ulema Council of the All-Russia Muslim Board told Itar-Tass on Monday.

“Russia’s Muslim Spiritual Directorates and spiritual leaders have no other way to influence except by repeated calls to repent,” he said. “The only thing we can do is to appeal to their conscience. But criminals have no conscience and therefore do not listen to spiritual leaders.”

Salman believes “in this situation, Muslims and all Russian citizens can only hope for the severity of law-enforcement authorities who should find, expose and liquidate terrorist bases in this country”.

The spiritual leader said it was time to reconsider Russia’s counter-terrorism legislation and “to immediately stop the activities of all radical groups using Islamic teaching to propagate their ideas,” which “can now be freely spread in our country and are not forbidden yet”.

First, it was necessary to confront the spread of pseudo-Islamic ideologies on the Internet — “electronic terrorism, which is flourishing in this country”, he said. “Young people are being brainwashed into destroying the state,” Salman said.

According to updated information, 14 people died and 28 were taken to hospital following the trolleybus bombing in Russia’s southern city of Volgograd.

This was the second terrorist attack in the last two days. On Sunday, an explosion struck Volgograd’s central railway station, killing 17 people and injuring more than 40. Five are in a critical condition.

In an earlier atrocity in the same city on October 21, seven people died and more than 40 were injured when a bomb exploded on a bus.