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Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Al-Qaeda can reunite into one terrorist network, the FSB’s director and head of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, Aleksandr Bortnikov, said on Wednesday. This new group would have cells across the globe and would be able to produce chemical weapons.

“Such [an] organization would have sleeper and active cells in many countries around the world with considerable experience of conducting military and subversive actions in field and city conditions, technologies and infrastructure to produce real rather than fake chemical weapons.”

The grim warning was issued at the 7th Moscow Conference on International Security.

Meanwhile, the extremists use the rift between the world powers for their goals and this allows them to exist. The global terrorist threat, however, cannot be eliminated by local efforts, but requires a joint approach to fulfill the task, the FSB head said.

Earlier, Russian envoy to NATO Aleksandr Grushko warned that international security suffers from attempts to isolate Russia, as attempting to create “isolated safe havens” are doomed to failure.