Russia foils 2014 Winter Olympics attack plot: official

Moscow, May 10:

said its security service had foiled an attempt by Caucasus militants assisted by its foe

to attack the Black Sea city of Sochi when it hosts the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

The National Anti-Terror Committee (NAK) alleged the plot was masterminded by Doku Umarov, the shadowy Chechen militant Russia has repeatedly tried to kill, with assistance from the Georgian intelligence. It said Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents last week uncovered a cache of shoulder-launched missiles, explosives and grenade launchers in a plot that was based in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

Security officers from Russia and Abkhazia arrested three militants who are suspected of plotting the attacks, the Committee said.

"Russia's FSB could establish that militants were planning to move these weapons to Sochi during 2012-2014 to use for terror acts while planning and hosting the Olympic Games," said the statement, quoted by Russian news agencies. NAK said the operation was coordinated by Umarov, the leader of the Islamist group Caucasus Emirate, who has claimed responsibility for the deadliest recent attacks on Russian soil.

"Doku Umarov -- while maintaining close contacts with the Georgian special services -- coordinated all activities to organise the delivery of materials to carry out the acts of terror," the Committee said. Georgia's security services and "associated representatives of illegal armed groups in Turkey" were also behind a smuggling of 300 detonators from Georgia and Abkhazia, which was thwarted in February, it said.

AFP