FSB detains terrorist accomplices preparing attacks on churches in Ingushetia
As reported on September 30 by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the FSB prevented a terrorist attack on churches and law enforcement officers in Ingushetia. One of the targets of the attacks seems to have been the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Sunzha.
Russian FSB officers detained six Russian citizens in Ingushetia who planned attacks on law enforcement officers and the Orthodox Church. The detainees are adherents of an international terrorist organization banned on the territory of Russia, possibly linked to the Islamic State.
It is claimed that the attackers were preparing sabotage and terrorist actions against law enforcement officers and religious objects, in particular, they wanted to attack the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Sunzha. The detainees confessed. All defendants in the criminal case have been arrested.
UPDATE: On 14 March 2025, three teenagers were arrested in Ingushetia on suspicion of involvement in planning a terrorist attack against the Orthodox Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God. The teenagers joined the terrorist organization in August 2024 and illegally obtained a stockpile of weapons and ammunition, which they later hid.
One of the six detainees from August 2024, said he received instructions to attack the church from a native of Dagestan living in Syria. The head of Ingushetia, Mahmud-Ali Kalimatov, said the attack was to be carried out in a similar manner to the June 2024 attacks in Dagestan, when several armed men simultaneously attacked churches and synagogues in Makhachkala and Derbent, killing 22 people, including a priest from Derbent.
Russian law enforcement authorities reported other criminal cases related to the preparation of attacks on Orthodox churches. In late 2024, Idris Idibekov, an 18-year-old citizen of Tajikistan, was charged with preparing an attack on an Orthodox church in Adygea. In 2018, six people were killed and four others injured after an attack on a church in the Daghestan town of Kizlyar. Five parishioners and the attacker were killed, and two police officers were among the injured. The attacker was reportedly a member of the Islamic State. In the same year, seven people, including four attackers, were killed after militants tried to storm a church in the city of Grozny.
Source: vedomosti, vedomosti.ru, OC media
Picture: wikipedia