A 21-year-old man from Russia’s Tyumen region has been sentenced to 19 years in a maximum security prison on charges of planning an attack on police officers in Daghestan.
The man, identified as Zamir Zaitov, was sentenced by the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don on Monday.
According to the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Rostov region, the court found Saitov guilty of organising a terrorist community, participating in the activities of a terrorist organisation, making public calls for terrorist activity, participating in an illegal armed formation, making public calls for extremist activity, as well as illegal trafficking in weapons, ammunition and explosive substances.
According to the investigation, Saitov’s alleged criminal activities and plans were foiled by FSB officers. Case materials allege that he planned to carry out a series of terrorist attacks in Daghestan as part of a group of supporters of the ideology of the international terrorist organisation Islamic State, which is recognised as a terrorist organisation and banned in Russia. According to law enforcement agencies, Saitov allegedly recruited the supposed members of the group via the internet.
Saitov was detained on 21 May 2022 in a forested area on the outskirts of the town of Daghestanskie Ogni. The FSB claims that the detention took place while he was preparing an attack on officers of a local Interior Ministry in order to seize their service weapons. During a personal search, an F-1 grenade and 21 rounds of 5.45 mm ammunition were reportedly seized from him.
According to official information, the verdict has not yet entered into legal force at the time of publication and may be appealed in accordance with established procedure.
Cases involving the Islamic State are not uncommon in the North Caucasus.
In July 2024, an extremist preparing to carry out a terrorist attack in Maykop, Adygea was accused of recruiting a student from Syria into the ranks of the Islamic State. Eighteen-year-old Tajik Idris Idibekov allegedly planned to set fire to the Michael the Archangel Church in Maykop and then fly to Istanbul, for which he had bought a ticket.
In his conversations, Idibekov propagated ‘global jihad’ and insisted on the correctness of the actions of terrorists.
In May 2024, another resident of Maykop, Farkhad Akhmadov, was found guilty of recruiting for the Islamic State. He was sentenced to 17 years of imprisonment. According to the investigation, he propagated its activities, held discussions with a number of people, and posted photographs, videos and audio materials about the terrorist organisation in a group chat. He also corresponded with them, attempting to encourage terrorist activities in the region.
In the same year, in April, two local residents were arrested in Kabarda–Balkaria who, according to the investigation, held meetings in Nalchik to recruit locals into the Islamic State.
Elizaveta Chukharova
