Nineteen reported killed in synagogue, church attacks in Russia’s Dagestan

Civilians, including a priest, among dead as gunmen attack religious buildings in Derbent and a Makhachkala police post.

Dagestan, in the North Caucasus area of Russia, has announced three days of mourning in the wake of a gunman’s attack that left several people dead at a church, synagogue, and police post.

19 people have died as a result of the attacks in the unrest-plagued area of Russia, according to a report released on Monday by Russia’s Investigative Committee. Along with a number of citizens, including an Orthodox priest, at least 15 police officers also perished. It was also alleged that five assailants had been “liquidated”.

The attacks, which occurred on Sunday, the Russian Orthodox Church’s feast of Pentecost, in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala, also left at least 12 people injured.

Videos shared on social media and aired on Russian TV showed smoke and flames filling the skies over Derbent, an old Jewish community residing in a mostly Muslim area, following the synagogue’s fire.

About 125 kilometers (78 miles) away, in Makhachkala, the capital and largest city of Dagestan, attacks on places of worship were also reported. There, the police post was also targeted.

One of the poorest regions of Russia, Dagestan, borders Chechnya. The Investigative Committee said that it has launched criminal investigations into “acts of terror” in Dagestan.

“This evening, two Orthodox churches, a synagogue, and a police checkpoint in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala were the targets of armed attacks,” the National Antiterrorism Committee stated in a statement to the state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

“Preliminary information indicates that a Russian Orthodox Church priest and police officers were killed as a result of the terrorist attacks.”

Nikolai Kotelnikov, the archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, was allegedly “brutally killed” in Derbent.

Kremlin dismisses wider threat

The beginning of three days of mourning was declared by the Dagestani government on Monday.

The republic’s flags will be flown at half mast, according to RIA, and all entertainment-related events and programs have been canceled by cultural organizations, radio and television networks, and cultural institutes.

In a video sent on the Telegram messaging app, regional governor Sergei Melikov declared, “This is a day of tragedy for Dagestan and the whole country.”

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, downplayed the likelihood of a violent wave striking the North Caucasus, similar to what struck the area two decades prior.

“Russia is different now,” he declared. “Society in Russia and Dagestan is consolidated, and such terrorist manifestations are not supported by society.”

‘International terrorist organisation’

The assault on the Derbent temple occurred around 40 minutes prior to night petitions to heaven were because of start.

“The place of worship in Derbent is ablaze,” the executive of the public chamber of Russia’s Organization of Jewish People group, Boruch Gorin, composed on Message. “The gathering place in Makhachkala has likewise been set ablaze and burned to the ground.”

The rabbi of Makhachkala, Rami Davidov, later let RIA know that nobody was killed or harmed there.

Dagestan’s Service of Interior Undertakings said 19 individuals took cover inside a congregation in the city before they were directed to somewhere safe.

Lead representative Melikov said the six aggressors had been “exchanged”.

The Russian news organization TASS, refering to policing, revealed that the shooters were individuals from “a worldwide psychological oppressor association”.

The assailants have not yet been distinguished.

“This evening in Derbent and Makhachkala, obscure individuals made endeavors to weaken what is going on,” Melikov said.

Thick billows of smoke in the air above Derbent where the place of worship and chapels were set ablaze
Thick smoke in the air above Derbent [Reuters]
“Dagestan cops held them up. As indicated by starter data, there are losses among them. All administrations are acting as per the guidance … The characters of the aggressors are being laid out.”

The assaults come three months after nearly 133 individuals were killed when shooters started shooting at a stage performance in the Crocus City Lobby on the edges of Moscow. Islamic State in Khorasan Region (ISKP), situated in Afghanistan, said it was behind that assault, despite the fact that Moscow guaranteed without proof that Ukraine played a part.

Russia’s FSB security administration in April said it had captured four individuals in Dagestan on doubt of contribution in plotting the Crocus City Corridor assault.

In a report on the occasions of June 23, the US-based Foundation for the Investigation of War (ISW), noticed that the Russian part of ISKP’s Al-Azaim Media had adulated “their siblings from the Caucasus” for showing their abilities in Dagestan.

“Al-Azaim didn’t guarantee credit for the actual assault, remarkably, and the reference to the Caucasus firmly recommends that Wilayat Kavkaz [ISIL’s northern Caucasus branch] is liable for the assault,” ISW said.

Daniel Hawkins, announcing for Al Jazeera from Moscow, noticed that Dagestan had seen distress during the 1990s and mid 2000s.

“Viciousness there, as the years have gone on, has faded away,” Hawkins said, making sense of that the locale never saw the sort of contention that overwhelmed the adjoining Russian republic of Chechnya, where Russian powers battled two ruthless conflicts during a similar period.

“This kind of assault that is composed and has designated regular citizen strict framework is extremely uncommon and will almost certainly be stunning to Russians the nation over,” Hawkins said.

In October last year, many individuals raged the air terminal in Makhachkala over a departure from Israel arriving there. No less than 60 individuals were captured after they got through security to the runway and immersed the region around the airplane yelling hostile to Jewish mottos.