“International chemical terrorists,” including some arrested recently in Britain and France, were trained in Chechen rebel camps, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Saturday. “Chechen-brand terrorism” was an intrinsic part of alleged terrorist activities that have surfaced in various countries, including France and Britain, he said. “As for the training and instruction base for the international chemical terrorists, it is a well-known destination — the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia,” he told a security conference in Munich. Russia is fighting an insurgency in its predominantly Moslem southern province of Chechnya and it has accused Chechen rebels of operating from the Pankisi Gorge in neighbouring Georgia. “Down there, makeshift ricin laboratories have been found. The recently captured chemical terrorists apprehended in France and the United Kingdom had been undergoing training there.” A rebel shot dead by Russian forces in Chechnya itself had a “do-it-yourself guidance sheet on how to make improvised poisons, including ricin,” he said. Last month British police found traces of ricin at a north London apartment and since then authorities across Europe have arrested dozens of suspected extremists. Full Story
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