TASHKENT. Nov 7 (Interfax) - Terrorists who are active in the Middle East are increasingly using humanitarian corridors to smuggle saboteurs into other countries, Russian Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov said at a meeting of the CIS Council of the Heads of Security Agencies and Special Services.
"One of the channels used for smuggling groups of saboteurs and terrorists into countries that international terrorists are looking to enter is humanitarian corridors, which are used by militants' families, their wives and children, to return from armed conflict zones to the countries of origin," Bortnikov said.
"We are currently estimating the number of women and children who are relatives of militants and are citizens of Russia who are in the Middle East or have left for it and on whom we have identification data," he said.
"Such 'returnees' are often religious extremists and they are regarded by leaders of international terrorist organizations as suicide bombers, propagandists, and recruiters associated with an underground terrorist network," Bortnikov said.
"In situations of transit to the CIS zone, militants mainly follow illegal migration channels organized with assistance from transnational criminal communities and corrupt officials," he said.
Militants receive support from ethnic criminal groups controlling drug trafficking and weapons smuggling in the countries where they arrive, they form underground groups, recruit their supporters and accomplices, mainly in socially vulnerable, problem, marginal groups of society, Bortnikov said. "I mean migrant workers, foreign students, and also people in prison," he said.
Young people, "who are easily influenced by extremist ideologies," face special risks, Bortnikov said. "They are brainwashed during sermons and lectures delivered by radical clergymen in religious establishments, most of which operate unofficially, as well as disseminated via the Internet, including via public websites," he said.