MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s security services have detained a man suspected of planning a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow, concluding a special operation against a particular group, the National Antiterrorism Committee (NAK) said in a statement on Thursday.
The brief statement says “Federal Security Service special forces have detained the organizer of planned terrorist attacks in Moscow” and that a “special operation to neutralize” the group they say is responsible is now complete. The operation took place near Moscow, NAK said.
The initial statement released by NAK did not expressly link this to a recent operation outside Moscow on May 20, in which two suspected militants were killed and one detained.
The suspects in the May operation were reported to be Russian citizens with ties to the Islamic Party of Turkestan, who had been trained in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
However, a fuller statement released later on Thursday morning said that the two operations are directly linked and named the man detained as Yulai Davletbaev.
Some Russian media outlets previously reported that Davletbayev had been killed in the May 20 operation.
Updated with details from later press release by NAK and correcting “organizing” to “planning” in lead – for clarity.
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