Twenty killed in two Islamist attacks in Dagestan

Moscow

This scene is more typical of the Caucasian Russian republic of Dagestan, located between the Caspian Sea and Chechnya. On Sunday evening, at least six local terrorists attacked two synagogues and an Orthodox church in the republic’s two main cities, Makhachkala and Derbent. In Derbent, a synagogue was set on fire and Orthodox priest Nikolai Kodelnikov, 66, was killed with his throat slit. In Makhachkala, terrorists attacked a police station, regular targets of Islamists in the region.

Videos of bloodied bodies of police officers abandoned in the middle of an encounter on Sunday evening were posted on social media as officers urged residents to take shelter in their homes. At least 17 of the 20 people killed in the attack were police officers. Russian officials said “ Liquid » – according to their time – six terrorists at the end of the shooting.

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These attacks have become routine in the region since the Chechen wars. A leading supplier of Russian terrorists to the Islamic State, the Republic of Dagestan is a large village of 3 million people, where everything is known and everyone knows each other. On Sunday, two of the attackers killed by police were none other than the two sons of a local politician, Magomed Omarov, head of Serkokalinsky District, located between the two attacked towns. He was immediately questioned by the police and his name was removed from the official United Russia website of the Kremlin party.

Another terrorist, Gadjimurad Kaguirov is a small local personality: age 28, a former MMA fighter linked to the great Caucasian star Khabib Nurmagomedov, he was removed by the police.

Anti-terrorist measures

The Sunni Muslim republic of Dagestan, heavily funded by the Kremlin, has suffered from the radicalization of a section of its society. Beyond organized anti-terror operations in the hills, an incident on October 29 reminded us of this issue. A mob stormed the Makhachkala airport to attack a flight from Israel, which took the form of an assassination attempt.

On Monday, Islamic State in Khorasan, which originated from the Caucasus and Afghanistan in Central Asia, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Makkahsala and Derbent. It is the same terrorist group responsible for the bloody attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow last March, in which 145 people were killed. He vowed revenge after airing footage of terrorists being tortured by Russian services.

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Three days of mourning have been declared in Dagestan, but the sadness is struggling to affect Moscow. War propaganda only leaves room for catastrophes from Ukraine. Last March, the Kremlin went so far as to accuse Crocus of staging an attack on City Hall. On Monday, officials still appeared between the two waters on the issue. A local deputy, Mourad Gadjiev, accused Ukraine and NATO of being the origin of these attacks, putting the dish on its feet… But in an unusual conversation in Russia, Senator Dmitry Rogozin called for caution: “ If we blame every terrorist attack involving national and religious intolerance, hatred and Russophobia on the machinations of Ukraine and NATO, I believe this pink fog will lead us to bigger problems. » He wrote on his social networks.

The Kremlin, through its spokesman Dmitry Peskov, drew an eerie parallel between the deaths of four Russian vacationers in Sevastopol on Sunday, the interception of a Ukrainian missile and the attack on Dagestan. “ The President has received information on how assistance is being provided to the victims of these two attacks and their families », said Dmitry Peskov. Although the threat of an attack was announced by the US services a few days before the attack on Crocus City Hall, Vladimir Putin completely denied the threat of Islamic terrorism in Russia. A denial we don’t know if this is really affecting the security services or just war propaganda.