Ukraine says it blocked militant routes to Syria, Iraq

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) said on August 11 that the discovery was made in a wave of raids across several Ukrainian cities. The SBU said an apartment in the northeastern city of Kharkiv was being used as a temporary shelter by alleged IS members who intended to travel to Syria and Iraq. "This 'transit point' had four foreign nationals from Central Asian states," it added. Two of them have already been expelled from Ukraine, the SBU statement said. The agency added that an "IS recruiter from one of the former Soviet republics” was also detained. Security agents detained another "IS supporter" in the Kyiv region who had undergone training in Syria.