FSB detains Moscow terror plot mastermind - reportby Anna Arutunyan at 06/06/2013 12:23Russia’s security service, the FSB, has detained a man suspected of organizing a terror plot in Moscow, which was foiled by law enforcement earlier this month.The man, identified as Yulai Davletbayev, allegedly headed a militant cell called the Islamic Party of Turkestan, whose members had come to the capital to stage attacks on Victory Day.He was detained in a special operation near Moscow, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said in a statement cited by RIA Novosti on Thursday.“Having committed a number of crimes in [Russia], members of the militant group entered the territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they received military training,” the statement said. “After three years abroad… they secretly returned to Russia with the aim of carrying out terror attacks. They settled in an apartment in the [Moscow region] town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo, where they prepared for the crime.”Davletbayev was even reported to have gotten a job as a taxi driver in Moscow, allowing him to live in the capital without raising suspicion and to look for crowded areas for a potential attack location.On May 20, Russia’s Federal Security Service killed two suspected militants and detained a third following a shoot-out in Orekhovo-Zuyevo. Then, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee reported that a terror attack had been foiled.Earlier in March, Russia’s Interior Ministry reported it had detained the Moscow leader of the militant cell.The Islamic Party of Turkestan is an Islamist group that has been ruled to be a terrorist organization by Russia’s Supreme Court, and is banned in a number of European countries. FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov has called it as threatening as al-Qaeda. While in the Afganistan-Pakistan region, its members carried out attacks against NATO coalition forces.
