Russian Rebels Pose Threat To 2014 Winter Olympics

6/3/2010 7:47 AM ET

(RTTNews) - The chief of Russia's state security service has disclosed that the Winter Olympic Games the country is to host in four years faces threat from rebel groups.

The Black Sea resort city of Sochi, venue for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, is close to Russia's North Caucasus region, scene of a long-running Islamist insurgency.

Russian news agencies quoted head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov as saying that he believed that Islamist insurgent groups would try to force the cancellation of the Games, but did not mention any specific plots.

He warned of a possibility similar to the cancellation of the Lisbon-Dakar Rally in 2008 following threats from al-Qaeda. "Militant leaders have clearly expressed their intention to play out a similar scenario on the eve of the 2014 Olympics," he told a security conference in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on Thursday.

"The threat of terrorist acts is becoming a factor which exerts a serious influence on political decision-making," he added.



He also told the conference that Russia's security forces had prevented 23 terrorist attacks and detained more than 250 bandits and their associates so far this year.

A sharp upswing in lawlessness and separatist violence in Muslim-dominated autonomous Republics in the North Caucasus - Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia - is undermining Kremlin's control of its southern flank.

Several people, including Ministers and top government officials, had been killed in attacks by armed militants.

Muslim separatists from the Caucasus region have been blamed for bomb attacks on the Metro system in Moscow and elsewhere in the country.