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Joint security exercises to be held in southern Russia

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ROSTOV-ON-DON, April 21 (RIA Novosti, Anatoly Novichkov) - Joint command and post exercises of Russia's security agencies will start Monday in the Southern Federal District, Interior Ministry officials said Friday.

"The main objective for the organizers is to practice the activities of all security agencies in conditions of a terrorist threat, as well as interaction in the event of an emergency," the police press service said.

The event will bring together more than 10,000 officers from the Federal Security Service, the Interior and Defense ministries and other security bodies.

In particular, they will practice repelling a militant attack and conducting a special operation to search for and eliminate a group of gunmen.

The situation in southern Russia remains tense. Oleg Khotin, deputy head of the North Caucasus group of federal forces, said Thursday that there were currently 105 small armed groups active in the North Caucasus, with a total of 780 members.

Commenting on clashes with militant groups in Daghestan and Ingushetia this week, Maj. Gen. Khotin said the groups were continually on the move from region to region.

"The groups are replenished with militants arriving from adjacent regions of Georgia, Ingushetia and Daghestan under the guise of displaced people as well as through recruitment of young people," Khotin said, adding that foreign mercenaries were also involved.

He said the nature of the groups' activity had changed from large-scale resistance to criminal sallies, due to the work of Chechen police and federal forces.

But he said not all supply channels of financial and technical aid to militants had been cut off, and sabotage operations in the North Caucasus were still possible.

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