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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Al-Qaeda members at large inside Russia |
| 2004-10-06 |
| AL-QAEDA terrorists are at large in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, the chief of Russia's FSB state security service said in televised comments today. "Al-Qaeda is not a myth, it really and truly is present on our territory," Nikolai Patrushev told NTV television, adding that some 10 al-Qaeda agents had been detected in the Caucasus region. We know them and we will take measures to neutralise their activity - either by destroying them, or detaining them and bringing them to justice." Several separatist chiefs in the war-torn republic of Chechnya were al-Qaeda members, including Khattab, Abu al-Walid and Abu Khabs, Mr Patrushev said. However, even though claiming that his secret service had prevented more than 500 terrorist acts this year alone, Mr Patrushev had to admit that "we do not work well enough to anticipate" terrorists, and "special services must work more effectively". Mr Patrushev also acknowledged that the FSB had not so far managed to lay hands on either Chechnya's separatist president Aslan Maskhadov nor the fearsome rebel warlord Shamil Basayev, both blamed by Moscow for numerous attacks. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |