Suspected militants arrested

Moscow: The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has detained 19 suspected Islamist militants planning attacks in the North Caucasus.

The FSB yesterday said it had seized a suicide belt, homemade bombs and automatic weapons from the suspects this month.

The 19 detainees, suspected members of the Takfir walHijra Islamist group, were spread across the Rostov, Krasnodar and KarachayCherkessia regions, as well as Crimea, the peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia has repeatedly been targeted by Islamist militant groups, including in an attack on a train carriage in a St Petersburg metro tunnel in 2017.