"Now, that they have practically suffered defeat in building a caliphate in the territory of Syria and Iraq the warlords of the Islamic State and other affiliated international terrorist organizations have set another global strategic aim - that of creating a new worldwide terrorist network. This is well-seen in the nature and vast geographic scope of the latest terrorist attacks. This year the death toll of attacks in Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Mali, Turkey, Russia, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Finland and other countries numbers hundreds," Bortnikov said at a meeting with the heads of special services, security agencies and law enforcement agencies in the southern city of Krasnodar.

He said that terrorists’ actions should be qualified as a challenge to entire civilized humanity aimed at breeding panic in various parts of the world and putting pressures on the countries that wage a war on terrorism and also as the wish to demonstrate to their "real and potential supporters and sponsors the ability to push ahead with active operations."

According to him, lone-wolf terrorist attacks are becoming a dangerous world trend. "Calls by warlords addressed to their supporters in many countries not to come to Syria or Iraq but to stay where they are in order to stage pin-point attacks and high-profile terrorist attacks against civilians are one of its new features," TASS cited Bortnikov as saying.

He added that another major threat is posed by terrorist militants who return home from trouble spots or who have entered other countries under false identities and who have undergone "brainwashing and have long combat record and skills in making explosive devices."

Federal Security Service Chief stressed that for achieving their aims in Europe and Russia the leaders of international terrorist groups widely use migration flows, which in the context of full or partial openness of borders allows international terrorist militants to infiltrate into the ‘target countries’ in the guise of refugees or labor migrants.

He noted that the terrorists’ ringleaders have established tight links with major ethnic criminal groups and supply them with weapons and documents necessary for settling down and provide other assistance.

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