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February 17th, 2015 
David Schulberg Law enforcement officials are investigating reports of an attempt to recruit students in Siberia to the Islamic State terrorist cause in the Middle East.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has announced a major probe is under way, following the troubling development at a university in Novosibirsk.
It has emerged a student from Kazakhstan travelled to the city to study for 18 months, but used his time in Siberia to try and convince friends and classmates to go to Syria and join ISIS.
When he failed in his extremist recruitment drive he left and travelled on his own.
The news comes just days after more hostages were shown being executed by Islamic State, including a Jordanian pilot and a Japanese national.
Alexei Kirillov, deputy head of the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, confirmed the investigation and also said more potential terror suspects could be in Siberia.
He said: ‘We uncovered the case of the recruitment for ISIS and we are working on it. The student – a native of Kazakhstan, from Pavlodar – has already left for Syria. He studied in one of our universities for a year and a half, and lived in the same room with other students, but could not convince them, and left for Syria alone.
‘We had more radical cases, but we did not allow them to evolve, because we have a healthy society here, who are opposed to this [radicalism]. There’s only one person from the whole region, who supports it. Which shows that we have healthy, normal society.’
The Islamic State group is quickly becoming the most feared and ruthless terror organisation in the world, taking over from Al Qaeda. Its methods are brutal, involving the kidnapping of hostages to execute on camera.
Operating mainly in Syria and Iraq, it is banned in Russia but it has emerged authorities here are investigating at least 58 criminal cases involving recruitment for the group.
The latest execution, of a Jordanian pilot, caused outrage across the Middle East and prompted Jordan to carry out air strikes on IS targets. Describing the bombings as ‘the beginning of our retaliation’ for the murder of Moaz al-Kasasbeh, who was shown being burned alive in a cage.
Lt Kasasbeh, 26, was captured by the militants in December after his F-16 fighter jet crashed in Syria and it is thought he was killed on January 3.
Meanwhile the US-led coalition against IS conducted a number of other airstrikes in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday and Thursday in a bid to weaken the terror group.
Source Article from http://friendsofsyria.co/2015/02/16/siberian-students-targeted-by-extremist-terror-group-islamic-state/
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