"Agents of the Russian Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Extremism Department working together with FSB have arrested a resident of Tatarstan in the northwestern administrative district of Moscow, who was attempting to recruit Russian citizens for illegal militant groups in Syria and Iraq," the ministry’s spokeswoman Irina Volk told the media.
The suspect was apparently already on police’s wanted list for being a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Islamic Party of Liberation) is an international Islamist network originally established in 1953 that positions itself as a political organization. It seeks to unify all Muslim countries into one caliphate ruled by strict Islamic law, and has been banned in Russia, Germany, Turkey, China and in several Arab countries.
Despite the fact that the group was outlawed in Russia in 2003 by a Supreme Court ruling, its agents continue to attempt to advance their organization’s agenda in the country.
