MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s FSB security force said Wednesday that it had killed two men from Central Asia suspected of preparing attacks, while trying to arrest them in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.
“As a result of clashes during attempted detention, two citizens of a Central Asian state were neutralized by FSB officers,” the agency said in a statement.
The men, born in 1987 and 1991, “were in contact with recruiters from international terrorist organizations” and “showed an interest in techniques for homemade explosive devices and expressed readiness to commit terrorist attacks in Russia,” the FSB said.
The agency said it found bomb-making ingredients and weapons during the raid in the Vladimir region, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Moscow.
Local media outlets published a video of two men lying dead in a bedroom of a large brick house in the countryside. A Kalashnikov lies next to one of them.
The FSB did not say whether the arrest attempt was linked to the April 3 attack on the Saint Petersburg metro that killed 14 people, which was allegedly carried out by a bomber born in Kyrgyzstan.
The agency has detained another man born in Kyrgyzstan on suspicion of helping orchestrate the metro bombing, who admitted to “some involvement” in the crime during a court appearance Tuesday.
Russia has also detained eight others from ex-Soviet Central Asia on suspicion of involvement in the bombing.
No one has claimed responsibility for the Saint Petersburg attack, but investigators are looking into possible ties with Islamic State jihadists, who have threatened to attack Russia in retaliation for its intervention in Syria.
