Several armed men have launched a coordinated attack against two synagogues and two Orthodox churches in the Russian region of Dagestan, in the North Caucasus, this Sunday. According to the first information shared by the Russian Interior Ministry, at least six police officers and a priest have died, and another 12 people have been injured. However, it is common for authorities not to include deceased attackers in the lists of victims. The mufti of Dagestan, an Islamic authority in the Muslim-majority region, raises the death toll to nine, including seven officers, and the number of injured to 25. The head of the regional government, Sergei Melikov, has promised harsh punishment for “anyone who is behind these disgusting actions.”
The attackers targeted a synagogue and an Orthodox church located on Ermoshkin Street in the regional capital, Makhachkala. However, the terrorists were unable to overcome a police checkpoint on the highway. Videos from the scene showed the exchange of fire with security forces.
The attackers did manage to use assault weapons to hit another Orthodox church and a synagogue in the city of Derbent—home to an ancient Jewish community and a UNESCO World Heritage Site—as confirmed by the authorities and reported by the Russian news agency TASS. . Images from the scene showed fires in the Orthodox Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the synagogue.
One of the victims of this latest attack was a 66-year-old priest. According to the president of the Public Monitoring Commission of Dagestan, Shamil Khadulaev, the religious man was beheaded by the attackers.
The Ministry of the Interior, cited by local media, has assured that four of the assailants have been initially killed. The latest information, published hours after the first news, suggests that there are still clashes between armed attackers and security forces. In Derbent, the police operation against several gunmen who had barricaded themselves in a building has concluded with two more of the terrorists dead.
Russian authorities have targeted militant Muslims in previous incidents in the region. In the 2000s, Dagestan was already hit by attacks from an Islamist insurgency from neighboring Chechnya. Russian security forces then moved aggressively to combat extremists in the region. Last October, after war broke out in Gaza, there were riots in which doors were broken and the Makhachkala airport was razed to search for Jewish passengers on a flight arriving from Tel Aviv.
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Russia’s FSB security service arrested four people in Dagestan in April suspected of being involved in the attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall the previous month, the BBC reports. More than 140 people were killed in that attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group. Between 2007 and 2017, a jihadist organization called the Caucasus Emirate, and later the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, committed attacks in Dagestan and the neighboring Russian republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, according to that same network.
On this occasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the West and Ukraine of provoking unrest within Russia. In any case, after this Sunday’s attack, an anti-terrorist alert was declared not only in Dagestan, but also in Moscow and other regions of the country. This measure implies that security forces will be able to read telecommunications and access any building without prior judicial authorization.
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