Police in Russia's Far East are looking for a transgender man and his gay partner who they fear could flee Russia to join the Islamic State fundamentalist group, sensationalist tabloid LifeNews reported Tuesday.
Investigators fear the two suspects, identified as Alexei T. and Viktor E., could try to travel to Syria via the North Caucasus in southern Russia, home to some turbulent predominantly Muslim areas, the report said. The two men, both aged 22, hold radical views and regularly attended worship, LifeNews reported an unnamed source as saying.
Viktor, who has adopted a female name and wears women's clothes, is described in the LifeNews report as the “ringleader” of the “battle trannies” and is said to maintain contacts with armed fundamentalist groups. Both suspects hail from the Kamchatka region, where they lived with Viktor's mother, the report said.
The report comes just weeks after a 19-year-old student from the prestigious Moscow State University attempted to run away to Syria to join the ranks of Islamic State, only to be stopped at the Turkish border. She has since returned to Russia.
Word of the LGBT wannabe terrorists is likely to unsettle Russia's outspoken deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, who predicted last month in a Twitter post that the West would eventually “collapse under the onslaught of ISIS and gays.” He has yet to tweet on the latest news.