FBI Director Comey: FBI will help Russia protect Winter Olympics

FBI Director Richard Comey announced Thursday that the FBI was contributing several dozen agents to help Russian security forces enhance security for the Sochi Winter Olympics in February.

Director Comey said that his agents will be dispatched to Moscow and Sochi, the site of the games. They will work with Russian intelligence services in what Comey described as "an enormous task" to secure the games site. "I think it's particularly challenging in Sochi because of its proximity to areas of unrest and sources of a terrorist threat," Comey added.

Russian security forces announced it was launching an anti-terror sweep after authorities discovered bodies and explosives on Wednesday and Thursday at at least three sites in Stavropol Territory, a southern province near Sochi.

Security in and around Sochi had been increased as part of a Russian government effort to ensure safety for the games, with Emergency Services Minister Vladimir Puchkov announcing Russian security forces would be on "combat alert" beginning January 7.

Russian authorities have been on guard following two suicide bombings in the Russian city of Volgograd, 400 miles from Sochi, in late December 2013 that killed at least 34 people.

[Washington Post] [UPI]