Vladimir Putin thanks Donald Trump after CIA tip thwarts Russia terror attacks
Updated
Russian President Vladimir Putin has called US President Donald Trump to thank him for a CIA tip-off that helped thwart a series of terrorist bombings in St Petersburg, the Kremlin says.
Key points:
- Russia's Federal Security Service says seven suspected followers of IS arrested
- St Petersburg apartment search found explosives, automatic weapons and extremist literature
- Group allegedly planned to carry out attacks in St Petersburg on December 16
The CIA tip-off allowed Russia's top domestic security agency to track down and arrest a group of suspects who were planning to bomb the city's Kazan Cathedral and other crowded sites, the Kremlin said.
"The information received from the CIA proved sufficient to find and detain the criminal suspects," the Kremlin said.
Mr Putin also asked Mr Trump to convey gratitude to the CIA and assured him that Russian law enforcement agencies would hand over any information they get about potential terror threats against the United States, as they have done in the past, the Kremlin added.
A senior Trump administration official confirmed Mr Trump and Mr Putin had spoken on Sunday, but there was no immediate confirmation from US authorities that they had shared the intelligence with Russian officials.
While Russian officials have said the two countries were continuing to exchange terror-related intelligence, the statement from the Kremlin was Russia's first public assertion that information from the United States helped prevent an attack.
The conversation was the second phone call between the two leaders since Thursday, when Mr Trump thanked Mr Putin for his remarks "acknowledging America's strong economic performance", according to the White House.
Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, announced on Friday that seven suspected followers of the Islamic State group had been arrested for allegedly planning to carry out terror attacks in St Petersburg on December 16.
The agency said the suspects were plotting a suicide bombing in a church and a series of other explosions in the city's busiest areas on IS orders.
It said a search of a St Petersburg apartment found explosives, automatic weapons and extremist literature.
Russian news reports said the Kazan Cathedral was the prime target.
Russian TV stations have aired footage daily since Friday of the suspects in the foiled attacks being apprehended and questioned.
One segment showed FSB operatives outside a St Petersburg apartment building detaining a suspect, who appeared later saying he was told to prepare homemade bombs rigged with shrapnel.
"My job was to make explosives, put it in bottles and attach pieces of shrapnel," the suspect, identified by Russian media as 18-year-old Yevgeny Yefimov, said in the footage released by the FSB.
The TV reports included footage of a metal container, which the suspects used as a laboratory for making explosives, according to the FSB.
Another video showed operatives breaking the doors and raiding an apartment used by other suspects.
Last week, the FSB said it also arrested several IS-linked suspects in Moscow, where they allegedly were plotting a series of suicide bombings over New Year's.
AP/Reuters
Topics: terrorism, security-intelligence, defence-and-national-security, russian-federation, united-states
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