Russian special forces carried out a two-part operation in southern Russia over the weekend– targeting terror cells allied with ISIS.
The Anti-Terrorist agency says the militants targeted during a raid in the North Caucuses region were “instrumental” in recruiting Russian Muslims to travel to Syria and join ISIS as fighters in the conflict there. About 3,000 Russians are believed to be in Syria fighting for ISIS — the majority of them coming from the North Caucasus area.
Russian troops carried out the raids on Sunday, in a rural area outside Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic.
The North Caucasus region — which also includes the republics of Chechnya and Dagestan– is home to a large segment of the Russian Muslim community and considered a hotbed of Islamic extremist activity.
According to an AP report, the entire region where the Russian special forces carried out their raid is “fertile ground” for ISIS recruiting. Local reports said Russia authorities believed that the ISIS affiliate group was plotting “significant” terror attacks to be carried out in “busy public places” in Nalchik — which has a population of 240,000.
The special forces troops reportedly found at least two IEDs and a large arsenal of automatic weapons and ammunition.
The operation against the ISIS cell in Russia was carried out in two parts, according to inquisitr.com.
The first phase began at 8am Sunday morning, when agents patrolling the area spotted the group and tracked them to an underground bunker in a wooded area outside the city.
When the terrorists started shooting and using grenades against the troops that had surrounded the bunker, a firefight -lasting about five hours- followed. When it was over, 11 militants were dead. Three more were killed during a separate shootout later, inside the city.
According to the Russian news agency Interfax, the bunker was equipped for the militants to live there an extended period of time and the area around the hideout was booby-trapped with land mines.
Sunday’s raid near Nalchik was the second in the past two weeks in that area. On November 10, a special forces unit stormed a high-rise building in the capital city — where the leader of a militant Islamic group, allied with ISIS, was killed.
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