BISHKEK (TCA) — Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov has said that the Daesh (Islamic State) extremist group has given up the idea of establishing a caliphate in the Middle East and is now trying to create a global terrorist network using their foothold in Afghanistan to plot attacks in Russia, China, Iran, India, and Central Asia countries, Sputnik news agency reports.
“The bandits are most actively moving [from Syria and Iraq] to the territory of Afghanistan, where Daesh positions have already been established, from where they receive the opportunity to infiltrate into Central Asia, Iran, China, and India. Using the Afghan foothold, the terrorists are also attempting to carry out attacks against Russia,” Bortnikov said at a meeting of Russia’s special services chiefs in the city of Krasnodar on October 4.
Bortnikov also said that terror groups managed to establish close ties with ethnic criminal groups in both Europe and Russia.
“The gang leaders established strong ties with major ethnic organized criminal groups, which supply them with arms, documents necessary for legalization, and support them in other ways,” the FSB director said, adding that “the leaders of international terrorist structures are broadly using migration flows to achieve their goals, which makes it possible for militants and terrorists to enter target countries under the disguise of refugees or labor migrants with the borders being fully or partially open.”
According to Bortnikov, international terrorist groups have given up the idea of establishing a caliphate in Syria and Iraq in the face of a total defeat and set the new goal of creating a global terror network.
TCA
