Daesh Terror Threat in Russia Remains, National Antiterrorism Committee Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov, who chairs Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee (NAC) said Tuesday the threat from international terrorist groups, including Daesh (banned in Russia), and North Caucasus gangs, remained in crowded places.

The NAC information center said Bortnikov made the statement on Tuesday at a meeting of the committee on counterterrorism protection of facilities and crowded places, facilities of Russian transport infrastructure and measures to improve it.

"Despite the existing system of prevention transport terrorism, the situation calls for the development of additional measures to ensure counterterrorism protection of objects of air, rail and motor transport infrastructure," the committee said citing Bortnikov.

Bortnikov said the federal and regional authorities, with NAC's coordinating role, implemented a set of measures "that allowed to reduce the level of terrorist vulnerability of facilities and crowded places."

"At the same time, the threat associated with the aspirations of international terrorist organizations, especially Daesh, as well as the gangs operating in the territory of the North Caucasus region, remains," the statement said.

Daesh is a violent Islamist group that emerged in the Middle East in 2014, seizing large parts of Iraq and Syria and committing a series of terrorist attacks in countries around the world.