15 Killed in Simultaneous ‘Terror’ Attacks in Russia’s Dagestan

Unknown gunmen carried out on Sunday a series of deadly attacks in the Dagestan Region, southern Russia, killing at least 15 police and national guard officers and a priest, officials said.

The gunmen launched simultaneous attacks in Dagestan’s largest city of Makhachkala and the coastal city of Derbent. Russian officials said police had killed four gunmen in Makhachkala and two in Derbent.

The National Antiterrorism Committee said that armed attacks targeted a synagogue, two Orthodox churches, and a police checkpoint in the regional capital of Makhachkala and the city of Derbent in the south.

“As a result of the terrorist attacks, according to preliminary information, a priest from the Russian Orthodox Church and police officers were killed.”

The committee later said the “active” phase of the operation against attackers in Derbent had ended.

In all, 15 officers were killed  Dagestan head Sergei Melikov said in an update. 

Russia’s National Guard meanwhile said one of its officers had been killed in Derbent and several others wounded.

In a separate attack, the Dagestan interior ministry said that in a village 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Makhachkala, called Sergokal, gunmen had shot at a police car, wounding one officer.

The Russian Orthodox Church said its archpriest Nikolai Kotelnikov was “brutally killed” in Derbent.

The attackers in Dagestan were armed with “foreign” weapons, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported, citing security sources.

The “gunmen who carried out attacks in Makhachkala and Derbent are supporters of an international terrorist organisation,” a law enforcement source told the agency, without naming it.

“The synagogue in Derbent is on fire,” the chairman of the public council of Russia’s Federation of Jewish Communities, Boruch Gorin, wrote on Telegram.

“The synagogue in Makhachkala has also been set on fire and burnt down,” he said.

Gunmen fired at police and security guards and threw in Molotov cocktails, it said, adding that the attack in Makhachkala was similar.

The Russian Jewish Congress said on its website the Derbent synagogue was attacked about 40 minutes before evening prayers.

The Russian Investigative Committee confirmed that it had opened criminal probes over the “acts of terror” in Dagestan.