russia stops terrorist attack
© Julia Chestnova / RIA Novosti
A group of people who were plotting a terrorist attack in the Russian capital have been detained, Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said on Sunday, adding that an improvised explosive device had been found and defused.

The perpetrators were arrested in an apartment in central Moscow, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee said in a press release.

The operation was carried out as part of a series of criminal investigations resulting in the arrest of an unspecified number of people.

"In the flat, where the gunmen were hiding out, a self-made explosive device has been found and defused," said Andrey Chatskiy, spokesman for the National Anti-Terrorism Committee's information center.

Update:

FSB says ISIS-trained suspects planned terror attack on Moscow public transport
Several people were detained in a Moscow apartment on suspicion of planning a terror attack in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, citing the FSB press service. Two of the detained confessed the attack was to be on public transport, the FSB said.

"It was determined that at a certain address in Moscow six to 11 people have occasionally been, some of them had undergone military training in camps of Islamic State terrorists on Syrian territory and arrived in Russia long before the start of Russian military operation in that country," the press office of Russia's Federal Security Service told Russian news agencies.

A self-made bomb with a capacity of 5 kilograms of TNT, an electric detonator, scales to weigh the bomb components, instruments and manuals on making explosives were found in a flat in an ordinary apartment building in western Moscow. The bomb was neutralized.

During the questioning, two suspects told security officers that they planned an attack on Moscow public transport, and had received financial resources and elements of an improvised explosive device from their superiors in the militant group, the FSB press service said.

"An evacuation of the building's residents was carried out, its gas supply system was switched off and the FSB's gas-engineering lab arrived at the scene," the Federal Security Service said. "The reconnaissance revealed [5 kilos] of explosives, produced [from] ammonium nitrate."