Gunmen opened fire at a synagogue, an Orthodox church and a police post in simultaneous attacks across two cities in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday, killing six police officers and injuring 12, the region’s Russian news agencies quoted the Interior Ministry as saying.
The attack comes three months after 145 people were killed in an attack claimed by ISIS, an al-Qaeda splinter group, on a concert hall near Moscow, Russia’s worst terrorist attack in years.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks in the volatile North Caucasus region. State news agency TASS cited law enforcement as saying that among the attackers had been two sons of the head of central Dagestan’s Sergokala district, who it said had been detained by investigators as a result.
A local religious organization in the mainly Muslim region put the death toll at nine, including seven police officers.
The Interior Ministry, quoted by Russian news agencies, said four gunmen had been shot dead as the incidents unfolded. A local official said another had been killed during a shootout at a church in Dagestan’s capital of Makhachkala, where an Orthodox priest was also killed.
Restive Dagestan was hit by an Islamist insurgency in the 2000s, spilling over from neighbouring Chechnya, with Russian security forces moving aggressively to combat extremists in the region.
In recent years, attacks had become rarer, with Russia’s Federal Security Service saying in 2017 that it had defeated the insurgency in the region.
Local news agencies reported that street fights were gripping Makhachkala. They cited the Interior Ministry as saying that exits from the Caspian Sea port of about 600,000 had been closed and that conspirators who were still at large may yet attempt to flee the city.
About 125 kilometres south of Makhachkala, gunmen attacked a synagogue and a church in Derbent, home to an ancient Jewish community and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Authorities were quoted as saying that both the synagogue and church were ablaze and that two attackers had been killed.
The head of Dagestan’s regional government vowed stiff punishment for “whichever forces lie behind these disgusting actions.” Russian media cited the head of the country’s federation of Jewish communities as calling for people to avoid reacting to “provocations.”
In Israel, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said the synagogue in Derbent had been burned to the ground and shots had been fired at a second synagogue in Makhachkala. The statement said it was believed there were no worshippers in the synagogue at the time.
Russian authorities have pointed to militant Muslim elements in previous incidents in the region.
Last October, after the war in Gaza broke out, rioters waving Palestinian flags broke down glass doors and rampaged through Makhachkala’s airport to look for Jewish passengers on a flight arriving from Tel Aviv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West and Ukraine of stirring up unrest inside Russia in connection with the incident.
Source Agencies
