Suspected ‘ISIS-inspired’ terrorist cell members arrested in Poland over attack plot

From Reuters via the New York Times and Russia Today. 

WARSAW — Four Tajik men have been detained in Poland on charges of trying to recruit Muslim converts to carry out militant attacks, authorities said on Monday.

The four would be expelled and barred from reentering Poland and the rest of Europe’s Schengen area, Stanislaw Zaryn, the spokesman for the minister coordinating special forces, said.
“They were trying to recruit people who could be used to commit some kind of terrorist crimes,” Zaryn told Reuters. “They were inspired by ISIS (Islamic State) … but they were not a part of the organisation,” he said.

Internal Border Guard officers detained the Tajik men on May 7 on the basis of evidence collected by the Internal Security Agency (ABW), Zaryn said in a statement. Special forces are under the control of interior minister Mariusz Kaminski.

Some 1,900 people are believed to have left Tajikistan – the poorest former Soviet republic – since 2015 to fight in ISIS’ ranks, according to figures released by Tajik national security officials in 2018. Last month, four Tajik nationals were arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning to attack US military bases there.