Replies

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/10/05/alkaeda.shtml

10 Al Qaeda Operatives in Chechnya — FSB
Created: 05.10.2004 20:06 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 20:06 MSK, 1 hour 55 minutes ago

At least 10 members of the al Qaeda terror network are active on Russian territory, the head of the FSB announced Tuesday.

While federal forces killed Saudi mercenary and suspected al Qaeda operative Hattab and others fighting alongside separatists in south Russia’s Chechnya in the last few years, others, like Abu Hafs, have come to take their place, FSB head Nikolai Patrushev told NTV television.

He added that Russian intelligence knows the identity of certain al Qaeda representatives and “will take action to neutralize their activities. This means either their destruction, or their being brought to trial,” Gazeta.ru quoted him as saying.

Intelligence has linked al Qaeda with the separatist movement in Russia’s Muslim southern province in the past, and Moscow has cited al Qaeda’s alleged involvement in the separatist war when pressuring the West to extradite separatists who have asylum in Great Britain and the United States, in particular after the deadly spate terror attacks on Russian soil in August and September.