Ukraine Detains 'Two IS Fighters' Headed for Europe
Ukraine said on Wednesday it had detained two Islamic State fighters from Syria who were trying to cross into western Europe in order to stage new attacks.
The SBU national security service said the cell was uncovered in Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv -- an industrial hub controlled by Kiev throughout the ex-Soviet republic's 25-month separatist war.
"The Kharkiv national security service of Ukraine has uncovered an attempt to send supporters of the Islamic State international terrorist organization from Syria by transit through Ukraine to western European states," the SBU said in a statement.
"The organizer of this illegal transfer was a citizen of a neighboring country who is living unlawfully in Ukraine and is suspected by law enforcement officials of possible involvement in terrorist activity," SBU said.
A senior source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the suspect assisting the IS was a Russian national.
"Two of the Islamic State supporters detained in Kharkiv were Syrian nationals," SBU spokeswoman Olena Gitlyanska to AFP by telephone.
Ukraine's UNIAN news agency said the arrests were made at the end of last week.
It was not immediately clear which western European countries the IS members intended to attack.
Europe has been on heightened alert since last year's jihadist attacks in Paris and subsequent bombings in Brussels.
The United States warned its citizens on Tuesday that the upcoming Euro 2016 football championship and related events across France and Europe would present "potential targets for terrorists."
- An IS 'transit point' -
The security service has reported the detention or expulsion of more than 30 Islamic State supporters from Ukraine since March.
SBU chief Vasyl Grytsak said on March 23 that 19 of the 25 IS suspects detained in a series of security sweeps were Russian nationals.
"IS members and supporters freely move across Russia and other post-Soviet states," the Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Grytsak as saying at the time.
"They use Ukraine as a transit point," Grytsak added.
Russia's north Caucasus leaders and its neighbors in Central Asian have been clamping down on Islamists -- some of them linked to Afghanistan -- for years.
Moscow has remained a staunch ally of Syria and began propping up the ruling regime with a powerful air assault in September 2015.
The Kremlin was heavily criticized for using those strikes to attack Western-backed opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad and not the Islamic State or other jihadist groups.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Moscow was ready to coordinate with a Kurdish-Arab alliance and the U.S.-led coalition in an assault on the Islamic State's Syrian bastion of Raqa.
The U.S. Defense Department swiftly rejected the offer and urged Moscow to stop "enabling the Assad regime".
Source: Agence France Presse
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