Suspect in Russia Metro Bombing Traveled to Turkey, Say Co-Workers

The two people said they did not know for sure if the man, Akbarzhon Jalilov, went on from Turkey to neighboring Syria. Turkey has been routinely used by terrorists as a route into areas of Syria controlled by the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.

If Jalilov had been in Syria, that would expose a major gap in Russia's counter-terrorism procedures, which rely heavily on identifying anyone who has been with militants in Syria and stopping them from returning to Russia, or arresting them.

The metro blast happened on Monday afternoon just as Russian President Vladimir Putin visited St Petersburg. No group has claimed responsibility. But Daesh has threatened acts of violence on Russian soil in reprisal for the Kremlin's military intervention in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Jalilov, the suspected suicide bomber, was born in 1995 and grew up in the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet Republic in Central Asia.

Around 2011 he moved to St Petersburg. He worked in low-paid jobs for several years. Photographs posted on social media showed a stylishly dressed young man. His online posts offered no hint of any ties to radical militants.

But there is a gap in Jalilov's biography from the end of 2015 until the start of this year. During that period several acquaintances said he disappeared from view.

He reappeared when he visited Osh in February this year. In March he returned to St Petersburg and rented an apartment from where he set off on the day of the bombing carrying a rucksack and a bag.

By speaking to several people who knew Jalilov well, Reuters has been able to piece together a picture of his life in the missing years.

According to someone from Osh who worked as a cook alongside Jalilov in a St Petersburg restaurant in 2014, he was an even-tempered young man who did not use swear words.

"I would have said firmly that Akbar was not capable of doing anything bad," said the source, using an abbreviation of Jalilov's name. The source asked not to be identified because he did not want the authorities to associate him with a suicide bomber.

The two worked in the same outlet of the Sushi Wok restaurant chain.

The second source, who also did not want to be identified, told Reuters he knew from Jalilov that he went to Turkey. The source said Jalilov had traveled there in November 2015, to join his uncle who was living in the Turkish region of Antalya.

Contacted by Reuters in Osh, Jalilov's uncle, Khasan Kuchkarov, told Reuters he had lived in Antalya but left in September 2015 and was unaware of Jalilov traveling there.

After Jalilov's departure from St Petersburg, there was talk among his old work colleagues, and among people who knew him back in Osh, that he had gone to Syria, both of the sources said. But neither of them knew for sure if he was in Syria, they said.

Officials in Russia's Investigative Committee, the state body investigating the metro bombing, and in the Federal Security Service, declined to comment on whether Jalilov traveled to Turkey or Syria.

Russian law enforcement agencies have arrested eight people on suspicion of involvement in the metro bombing. Six were detained at an apartment on Tovarishcheskii Avenue in a residential suburb of St Petersburg, and two in Moscow.