Russia says it thwarted planned ISIS attack on synagogue

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on March 7 that it had thwarted a planned "terrorist attack" on a Moscow synagogue, DW reports citing Russian media.

The FSB said that a so-called "Islamic State" (IS) cell, based in Kaluga, situated southwest of Moscow, had planned on attacking Jewish worshippers.

"While being arrested, the terrorists put up armed resistance to the Russian FSB officers, and as a result were neutralized by return fire," the security service was quoted by the TASS news agency as saying in a statement.

"Firearms, ammunition, as well as components for the manufacture of an improvised explosive device were found and seized," the FSB added.

Security services footage circulated by Zvezda news — run by the Russian defence ministry — showed FSB personnel searching a house in which the bodies of two men could be seen along with weapons, ammunition and knives.

The FSB said the men had been part of the Afghan branch of IS, but did not state their nationality.

Earlier this month, the FSB said it killed six IS fighters in the Muslim-majority southern region of Ingushetia.

Tensions between Russia's Muslim and Jewish communities have flared at times during the Israel-Hamas war.

Last October, protestors stormed an airport in Dagestan, another Muslim-majority region in the Caucasus, after a plane arrived from Tel Aviv.