Although the active phase of the North Caucasus antiterrorism campaign officially ended in 2001, periodic bombings and clashes between gunmen and federal troops still disrupt Chechnya and nearby regions, including Daghestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Circassia.
"The activities of international terrorist and radical organizations pose the greatest threat to Russia," Vladimir Pronichev said, adding that the drug trade remained their main source of financial support.
Foreign terrorists have been involved in many grave terrorist attacks in Russia, particularly in the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia September 1, 2004, when a total of 331 people, including 186 children, were killed.
In a special operation in March, 2002, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) killed the notorious foreign terrorist Emir Ibn al Khattab, who was directly involved in preparing and perpetrating an attack on Chechnya's capital Grozny in August 1996, as well as a terrorist attack on Buinaksk in December 1997.
Since the drug trade is the main source of financial income for terrorist and radical organizations, Pronichev said Russia has repeatedly expressed its concern over the growing opium poppy harvest in Afghanistan.
"In 2006, poppy harvest areas in Afghanistan totaled 165,000 hectares, which is twice as large as in 2002," he said.
Huge volumes of illegal drugs arrive in Russia each year from Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of heroin and opium. Most of the drugs are smuggled through Russia's ex-Soviet neighbor Tajikistan.
Since the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, the international community has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to destroy poppy crops, close drug labs, pay subsidies to impoverished farmers and encourage them to cultivate alternate crops, without obvious success.
