MOSCOW (Reuters) -Knife-wielding prisoners identifying themselves as Islamic State militants staged a deadly attack on guards in a Russian penal colony on Friday and seized hostages, according to state media and news outlets with ties to the security services.
In a video posted by news channel Mash, three uniformed prison officials could be seen lying motionless in pools of blood on the floor, one with his throat cut. Another was sitting upright in a doorway, where a man with a knife was holding him by the neck.
Russia state media said at least one member of the prison staff had been killed, but the video suggested the death toll was almost certainly higher.
One of the attackers shouted in the video that they were “mujahideen” of Islamic State and had seized control of the prison in the Volgograd region.
President Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks that he had been briefed by the head of the prison service.
Putin, addressing a weekly meeting of his Security Council, did not pass any comment on the unfolding situation but said he wanted to hear the thoughts of the interior minister and the head of the FSB security service.
The prison service said in a statement: “During a session of a disciplinary commission, convicts took staff of the penal institution as hostages. Measures are currently being taken to free the hostages. There are casualties.”
The prison is designated as a “harsh regime” penal colony with capacity to hold up to 1,241 male prisoners.
Pictures and video circulating on social media appeared to show four attackers. News sites said they had been confined to one block of the prison, and footage showed them pacing about in a large yard.
A member of the prison staff, his face covered in blood, could be seen with them in the yard, his hands bound behind his back.
The men’s demands were not clear. One of them said in the video that they had acted “without mercy” in response to alleged mistreatment of Muslim prisoners.
News sites with security connections published the names of four alleged attackers, identifying them as citizens of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. There was no official confirmation of their identity and motives.
Russia, whose defence and security agencies are heavily focused on its war in Ukraine, has seen a recent upsurge in Islamist militant attacks.
In June, a bloody Islamic State-linked prison uprising took place in the southern region of Rostov, where special forces shot dead six inmates who had taken hostages.
Later that month, at least 20 people were killed in shooting attacks in two cities in Dagestan, a mainly Muslim region of southern Russia.
In March, Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in which gunmen raided the Crocus City concert hall near Moscow, sprayed the audience with automatic weapons fire and set fire to the building, killing more than 140 people.
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow and Filipp Lebedev in London; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)
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