MOSCOW. June 30 (Interfax) - Officers of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) have detained an adherent of the ISIL terrorist organization (banned in Russia), who plotted an explosion outside an administrative building in Vladikavkaz, the capital city of Russia's internal republic of North Ossetia-Alania, the FSB press center said.
"A Russian citizen, born in 1990, who was plotting to blow up an improvised explosive device outside one of administrative buildings in the republic's center, was detained as a result of this operation," the press center said in a statement shared with Interfax on Tuesday.
"Components to make an improvised explosive device were discovered in a cache set up by the terrorist, and correspondence with ISIL members abroad that exposed his criminal intentions was found in his communications devices," it said.
After committing the crime, the suspect, whose name has not been disclosed, planned "to go to a hostilities zone in the Middle East in order to take part in the activities of the ISIL international terrorist organization, banned in Russia," the FSB said.
"A criminal case has been opened on a count of participation in a terrorist organization's activities (Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code). Preparations are in progress to additionally open a criminal case on a count of an attempt to perpetrate a terrorist act (Article 30, Part 1 of Article 205 of the Russian Criminal Code)," it said.
Footage circulated by the FSB shows officers detaining the man near a car on a highway.
When asked why he came to this place, the man said that he wanted to collect a briefcase from the cache. The officers then seized a power bank, a plastic bottle filled with an unknown substance, wires, and adhesive tape from the briefcase.
Article 205.5 of the Russian Criminal Code carries a prison term of 10 to 20 years.