Hunt on for two Siberian men fighting with jihadists

Prosecutors are trying to track down two Siberian men who have gone to Syria to fight with jihadists. Criminal cases have been launched against the unnamed pair, from the Kemerovo region in western Siberia.

One of them, from Belovo, has been in Syria since June last year and is involved with Sabri’s Jamaat and Abu Hanifa’s Jamaat, which have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State terror group.

The other, a 26-year-old unemployed man from the city of Prokopyevsk, travelled to the Middle East in August and is said to have joined militia fighting at the border between Turkey and Syria. Authorities say he passed ideological and military training at a camp there and is now participating in combat. 

Both criminal cases are based on Article 208 of Russia’s Criminal Code, which refers to the participation in a paramilitary group on the territory of a different state.

Olga Chekannikova, senior press officer with the FSB in Kemerovo, said the suspects will soon become wanted men internationally. She said: 'These [military] units are not provisioned by Syria's legislation and their activities are against Russia's interests in terms of a peaceful settlement of the Syrian military conflict.

'The information about these citizens was gained during an investigation of activities of residents of Kemerovo oblast, members of extremist religious groups of radical Islam followers, who were planning travelling abroad to join international terrorist organizations'.

The criminal cases come just months after the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced a major probe into claims of a drive by terrorists to recruit Siberian students.

In February law enforcement officials said that a student from Kazakhstan had travelled to Novosibirsk to study for 18 months, but used his time in Siberia to try and convince friends and classmates to go to Syria and join ISIS. When he failed in his extremist recruitment drive he left and travelled on his own.

The Islamic State group is quickly becoming the most feared and ruthless terror organisation in the world, taking over from Al Qaeda. Its methods are brutal, involving the kidnapping of hostages to execute on camera. Operating mainly in Syria and Iraq, it is banned in Russia but it has emerged authorities here are investigating at least 58 criminal cases involving recruitment for the group.