BREAKING NEWS

Putin orders crackdown on Islamists, police detain 300

By REUTERS

JUNE 7, 2013 21:43

MOSCOW - Russian police rounded up 300 people at a Muslim prayer room in Moscow on Friday after President Vladimir Putin ordered a crackdown on radical Islamists ahead of next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Putin has put security forces on high alert to safeguard the Games in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, which lies near to mainly Muslim southern provinces where Russia is battling an Islamist insurgency that has targeted Moscow.

"We must fight back hard against extremists who, under the banners of radicalism, nationalism and separatism, are trying to split our society," Putin said.

"The policy in the fight against corruption, crime and the insurgency has to be carried out harshly and consistently," Putin told a meeting of security force officers.

"The situation in the North Caucasus should be kept under particular control."

Friday's raid, the third targeting Muslim places of worship in Moscow or St Petersburg this year, led to the detention of 300 people including 170 foreigners and the confiscation of Islamist literature to check for extremist content, Russian news agencies quoted the Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying.

The FSB did not say why the people had been detained.

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