At least six police officers and a priest were killed in attacks in two towns in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan after gunmen opened fire on Sunday on a synagogue, at least two churches and a police station, the local Interior Ministry said.
At least a dozen police officers were injured in two apparently coordinated attacks, according to Russian state news agencies. reported, citing local law enforcement officials. The shootings took place in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, and Derbent, a border town with Azerbaijan.
As of Sunday evening, it was unclear how the total number of casualties was distributed between the two cities, but Derbent police officials said gunmen opened fire on a synagogue and a church, killing at least one police officer and injuring another.
Russian state news agencies videos posted of the Derbent synagogue ravaged by flames. In a press release, the local police said that the synagogue and church had been “set on fire.”
In Makhachkala, a sprawling city on the Caspian Sea, gunmen opened fire on a street that also houses a local synagogue. According to videos job According to the Dagestan Interior Ministry, armed men were on the loose in the city, opening fire and forcing people out of their cars.
The Russian Investigative Committee, the domestic equivalent of the FBI, said it had opened an investigation for terrorism in the attacks.
Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim republic that is also home to a Jewish population and has experienced increased levels of violence for at least three decades. But ethnic and religious tensions in the republic have worsened since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October.
In October, an angry crowd stormed an airport in Makhachkala looking for Jewish passengers on a flight from Israel. The attack shocked Russian Jews and drew condemnation from the Israeli government.
Sergei Melikov, the head of Dagestan, said in A declaration This Sunday’s attacks seemed aimed at “destabilizing the public situation.”
At least four of the gunmen were killed by law enforcement officers, local police said. the police said. With some of the gunmen still at large, police said they had blocked entrances to Makhachkala.
Neither the number of attackers nor their identities were immediately released.
The shootings took place just months after four terrorists attacked a large concert hall in a Moscow suburb, killing 145 people in a shooting and fire. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack; U.S. officials attributed it to ISIS-K, an offshoot of the group.
