Russian, Tajik and Uzbek intelligence officials combined to prevent several terrorist attacks in Russia planned by radical groups, according to Alexander Bortnikov, director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

Bortnikov made a statement on the joint anti-terrorist work at a meeting of the Council of Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services of the Commonwealth of Independent States, TASS reported on May 26.

Bortnikov was reported as saying that earlier this year, the FSB and Tajik security forces identified and neutralised a terrorist cell that was planning to hit Russia with "high-profile terrorist attacks." He added that in cooperation with the State Security Service of Uzbekistan, five extremist attacks that were aimed at various regions of Russia were thwarted in the planning stages.

Bortnikov was also cited as emphasising that terrorists, in particular Islamic State's Afghanistan-based branch, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP, or ISIS-K), also known as Vilayat Khorasan, were actively recruiting citizens of Central Asian countries and migrant workers in Russia.

"Vilayat Khorasan is currently actively recruiting militants from other terrorist organisations, recruiting supporters from among citizens of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, as well as migrant workers in Russia," the FSB chief was quoted as saying.

In comments on the situation in the Middle East reported by Kommersant, Bortnikov said there was a risk that jihadist people from CIS countries who have been fighting in Syria but were currently inmates in Syrian prisons, would be drawn into "proxy forces" fighting Iran in its confrontation with Israel and the United States.

"Such militants could also be used against their own countries," Bortnikov concluded.

In March, a Russian military court handed down life sentences to four ​Tajik gunmen and 11 accomplices over the major March 2024 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall entertainment venue in outer Moscow, in which 149 people perished.

The attack, claimed by ISKP, was the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege in which 333 people, many of them children, died.

The ISKP is an enemy of the Taliban fundamentalists who returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 after the US exit from the country. Russia is the only country that formally recognises the Taliban administration. This could give Russian intelligence officials some leverage in attempting to counter ISKP, which works to radicalise disillusioned individuals in Afghanistan and Central Asia and in migrant worker communities in Russia.