Five members of a banned militant group were arrested in southern Russia on Saturday and a homemade bomb packed with shrapnel was defused -- another security scare weeks before the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Russia's National Anti-terrorism Committee (NAC) said the latest arrests were in Nalchik, a town about 190 miles from Sochi in the Caucasus region, where insurgents want to carve out an Islamic state. "Security forces have detained five members of a banned international terrorist organization," the NAC said in a statement received by Russian news agencies. Chechen independence guerrilla commander, Doku Umarov, has urged militants to use "maximum force" to prevent the games, which open on February 7, from going ahead. The head of Russia's Olympic Committee has said Moscow has taken every possible measure to ensure the safety of the games. President Vladimir Putin has ordered safety measures beefed up nationwide after the attacks.
