Three men from Central Asia arrested for allegedly plotting bomb attack in Russia
Police in southern Russia have arrested three men from Central Asia for allegedly plotting a bomb attack, a week after Islamic State terrorists from Tajikistan killed 144 people at a rock concert in Moscow.
The three men “were plotting a terror attack with a bomb in a crowded place in the Stavropol region”, Russian news agency TASS quoted a Federal Security Service (FSB) spokesman as saying.
Russian security services did not specify which of the five former Soviet Central Asian countries the men were from.
The FSB published a video of the men shopping for food and nails when its agents then swept in and wrestled them to the ground.
“Components of an IED, chemical substances and submunitions” were seized at the arrested men’s homes, according to Baza, a Telegram channel linked to Russia’s security forces.
Russia has been on edge since the attack on the Crocus City Hall venue in northwest Moscow, the worst terrorist attack in Russia in 20 years.
The attack was believed to be carried out by the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State, which operates out of Afghanistan and recruits people from Central Asia.
Since then, Central Asian governments have warned their citizens to expect a backlash.
There have been reports of attacks on Tajik businesses and cafes and the Russian police have stepped up their inspections of Central Asians’ documents.
First Department, a Russian human rights group, also said that police were rounding up migrants and deporting them. It quoted an unnamed lawyer in St Petersburg saying that he had seen “at least two full planes” flying back to Central Asia.
“There are also raids on dormitories and apartments. All special detention centres are overcrowded,” the lawyer said.
According to the Interfax news agency, a court in St Petersburg said 400 migrants were being expelled this weekend in a crackdown on workers from Central Asia in Russia without the correct paperwork.
Moscow attackers fit a pattern
Russian security forces regularly claim to break up Islamist terrorist cells. Earlier in March, the FSB killed two Kazakhs near Moscow. They were said to be plotting an attack on a synagogue.
Many migrant workers travel from Central Asia to work in Russia but they are often treated poorly and become vulnerable to Islamic State recruiters.
Edward Lemon, a Central Asia specialist and professor at Texas A&M University, said that the recruitment of the Crocus City Hall attackers appeared to fit this pattern.
“They migrated to Russia relatively recently, were not particularly religious and appear to have rapidly mobilised to violence,” he said.
But Maximilian Hess, author of ‘Economic War: Ukraine and the Global Conflict between Russia and the West’, said that Vladimir Putin has warned Russian officials not to overenthusiastically crack down on migrant workers as they have become vital to the Kremlin’s war effort.
“Russia faces a crucial worker shortage as Putin has driven the economy into full war mode,” he said. “The overwhelming source of workers for such employment is Central Asian migrant labour.”
Russia’s workforce has shrunk since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine two years ago because hundreds of thousands of men have been mobilised into the army and even more have fled the country.
