Putin thanks Trump for CIA bomb plot help

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin called US President Donald Trump to express his gratitude for Central Intelligence Agency information that helped foil attempted terrorist attacks in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin said on Sunday.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, said on Friday that it had detained seven Islamic State supporters for plotting to blow up the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia.

“The information received from the CIA proved to be sufficient for the search and detention of the suspects,” the Kremlin said in a news release.

Putin told Trump that the Russian special services, upon receiving information regarding terrorist threats against the United States and its citizens, will immediately provide it to their US counterparts.

This was the second phone conversation between Putin and Trump within a week following a call on Thursday, when the leaders discussed “urgent issues” in bilateral relations and the situation on the Korean Peninsula.

“The information received from the CIA proved sufficient to find and detain the criminal suspects,” the Kremlin said.

The White House said in its readout of the conversation that “based on the information the United States provided, Russian authorities were able to capture the terrorists just before an attack that could have killed large numbers of people”.

Alexei Chepa, a deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russia’s parliament, hailed the CIA tip as a “step toward cooperation”.

“The more such actions we have, the better it will be for both our countries,” Chepa told the RIA Novosti news agency.

The FSB said the suspects were plotting a suicide bombing in a church and a series of other explosions in St. Petersburg’s busiest areas at the weekend on IS orders. It said a search of an apartment found explosives, autostruck

The more such actions we have, the better it will be for both our countries.”

Alexei Chepa,

matic weapons extremist literature.

Russian news reports said that Kazan Cathedral, a landmark 19th century Russian Orthodox Church, was the prime target.

If the suspects had succeeded, it would have been the first major attack on a Russian Orthodox Church by Islamist terrorists, who have blown up apartment buildings, passenger planes and transport facilities in Russia.

In April, a suicide bombing in the St. Petersburg’s subway left 16 dead and wounded more than 50.

Russian TV stations have aired footage daily since Friday of the suspects in the foiled attacks being apprehended and questioned. One segment showed FSB operatives outside a St. Petersburg apartment building detaining a suspect, who appeared later saying he was told to prepare homemade bombs.

“My job was to make explosives, put it in bottles and attach pieces of shrapnel,” the suspect, identified by Russian media as 18-year old Yevgeny Yefimov, said in footage released by the FSB.

The TV reports included footage of a metal container, which the suspects used as a laboratory for making explosives, according to the FSB. Another video showed operatives breaking the doors and raiding an apartment used by other suspects.

Last week, the FSB said it also arrested IS-linked suspects in Moscow, where they allegedly were plotting suicide bombings to coincide with New Year’s celebrations.