TASHKENT, November 7. /TASS/. At least 2,000 wives and children of militants, who are Russian natives, have been spotted in the Middle East's hotspots, Russia’s Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov said on Thursday.

According to the FSB chief, humanitarian corridors, via which wives, widows and children of militants come back home from the conflict zones, have become one of key channels for deploying terror groups.

"These ‘returnees’ are often adherents of religious and extremist ideology and are considered by chieftains of international terrorist organizations as suicide bombers, agitators and recruiters, as well as contacts of a clandestine terrorist network," Bortnikov told the 47th meeting of the Council of the Heads of Security Agencies and Intelligence Services of the CIS Member-States in Uzbekistan’s Tashkent.

"At the moment, there are some 2,000 women and children, who are relatives of militants of Russian origin staying in the Middle East or who have left the territory, and whom we have identified," Bortnikov said.

According to Bortnikov, militants, in cases of transits through the CIS countries, mainly take illegal migration channels provided by transnational criminal communities and corrupt officials. In countries of settlement, they are sponsored by ethnic organized criminal groups, which control drug and arms trafficking, create underground cells and recruit supporters and accomplices mainly among vulnerable social groups.

Strengthening CIS southern borders

Taking measures to maintain the security of southern borders of the CIS is on the list of top priority tasks of the member-countries’ special services, the FSB director stated. "Maintaining the security of the southern borders of the CIS is one of the top priority tasks," Bortnikov said. "We find it necessary to step up joint efforts to neutralize threats from the Islamic State [international terrorist organization outlawed in Russia — TASS], and Al Qaeda, which are entrenched in Afghanistan."

Bortnikov added that the special services’ other major task was greater attention to measures to resist the propaganda of terrorism and extremism in the Internet.

Also, the FSB chief reviewed cooperation with CIS special services. In part, in cooperation with partners in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan the activity of 13 cells of international terrorist organizations was exposed and quashed and 138 militants detained.

"In May-October the partner services put more than 200 CIS citizens on the border guards’ blacklists suspected of involvement in terrorist and religious extremist organizations," Bortnikov reported.

Also, in a joint operation with the Belarusian state security agency KGB to eliminate an illegal channel of weapons trafficking, more than 40 pieces of small arms and 9,000 pieces of ammunition were confiscated.

As a result of efforts to resist the drug threat Russia’s FSB, Belarus’s KGB, Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee of National Security, Tajikistan’s State Security Committee and Uzbekistan’s State Security Service seized a large amount of narcotic and psychotropic substances.

Western-backed NGO meddling on CIS states

Director of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov has placed the spotlight on the West’s intensified efforts to intervene in CIS member-states through non-governmental organizations.

"Along with these listed threats [from terrorist organizations — TASS], we should also highlight the stepped-up efforts by the West to exert external destructive influence on the domestic political situation in CIS countries," he said at a meeting of the Council of the Heads of Security Agencies and Intelligence Services of the CIS Member-States [SORB] in Tashkent.

Foreign and international non-governmental organizations are a traditional tool for such meddling in the domestic affairs of independent countries, he stressed, adding that these threats require close scrutiny.