Spymaster: Terror attacks at international summits thwarted
Russia’s top intelligence and counterterrorism agency prevented terror attacks during several international summits hosted by Russia, the agency’s chief said today.
Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev said in televised remarks that “preventative actions helped thwart bandit leaders’ plans for conducting terror attacks and hurting Russia on the international arena.”
Patrushev specifically referred to terror attacks allegedly planned for the G8 summit in St Petersburg last July and Russia-European Union summits at the Black Sea resort of Sochi in May 2006 and in the Volga River city of Samara last month.
He gave no further details.
Russia has been rattled by a series of shocking terror attacks, including the 2004 Beslan school hostages seizure that ended in the deaths of 333 people, and the 2002 seizure of hundreds of hostages at a Moscow theatre, as well as two mid-air airline bombings and subways bombings.
Chechen rebels have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks.
The Federal Security Service is the main successor agency to the KGB.
