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Six Pakistanis expelled from Russia for preaching 'fundamentalist Islam'

Russian security officials today expelled six Pakistani missionaries who were accused of fomenting tension and preaching fundamentalist Islam.

The missionaries are Wahhabis, a fundamentalist movement that Russian authorities have blamed for recent violence in several parts of the former Soviet Union.

While preaching Wahhabism in the Bashkortostan region in the southern Ural mountains, the Pakistanis made anti-Russian remarks aimed at fuelling ethnic and religious hostility and offending the dignity of other religious groups, the Federal Security Service office said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The FSS, the main successor of the Soviet KGB, also accused the six preachers of trying to recruit men to fight in the regional conflicts.

The Pakistanis had visas valid until January and planned to visit several regions in southern Russia, including restive Dagestan, a republic bordering the breakaway region of Chechnya. But they were barred from going and were sent home today, the report said.

UNI

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