(Bloomberg) -- Russian law-enforcement agents detained six migrant workers from several countries of central Asia on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities in St. Petersburg, the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement on its website.
These people, who weren't identified, are suspected of recruiting others from mostly Muslim central Asia starting in 2015 to join terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and Al-Nusra to commit attacks and to fight along with militant groups in foreign countries, according to the statement. Investigators said they don't have any information that would link those detained with the suspected bomber who killed 14 people with a suicide bomb inside a subway car in St. Petersburg Monday.
The bombing was the worst terrorist attack in a major Russian city in years. The suspected bomber was identified as Akbarzhon Dzhalilov, 22, Russian authorities said on Tuesday. He was a Russian citizen born in Kyrgyzstan, according to a spokesman for the Kyrgyz government's Committee for National Security.
The bomb detonated inside the train as it traveled between two major hub stations in the center of Russia's second-largest city. The attack happened while President Vladimir Putin was on a visit to St. Petersburg, his native city. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was expected to sign a new order later Wednesday tightening security on subway systems around the country, the Interfax news service reported.
“We see that the situation unfortunately is not improving and the best proof of that is the recent events in St. Petersburg,” Putin said Wednesday at a Kremlin meeting with heads of security services from former Soviet countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States. “Each of our nations is a potential target for terrorist attacks,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net, Stepan Kravchenko in Moscow at skravchenko@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin
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