MOSCOW. May 19 (Interfax-AVN) - Terrorists are recruiting young followers not only in the North Caucasus but also in the Urals and the Volga region, First Deputy Head of the National Counter-Terrorism Committee Yevgeny Ilyin said at a Wednesday conference on security at higher educational establishments.
"Young people are being brainwashed not only in North Caucasian republics, as it is sometimes claimed. Emissaries of foreign terrorist and extremist religious organizations are intensifying their activity in the Volga region and the Urals," he said.
The emissaries have grown active at educational establishments and in young groups in the North Caucasus, Ilyin said.
"An analysis of the events of the past four to five years shows that militants, whose activity is terminated, are no more than 30 years old," he said.
Men aged from 19 to 30 accounted for about 80% of the 546 members of the illegal armed groups who surrendered to the police in the amnesty of 2006, he said.
Fifty-eight out of 92 participants in the armed attack on the Nalchik police in 2005 were younger than 25, he said.