MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s southern region of Dagestan observed the first of three days of mourning Monday after a violent crackdown by Islamist militants who killed 19 people, most of whom were police officers, and attacked places of worship in apparently coordinated attacks in two cities .
Sunday’s violence was the latest that officials blamed on Islamic extremists in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, and also the deadliest in Russia since March, when gunmen opened fire at a concert on the outskirts of Moscow , which killed 145 people.
The March attack was claimed by an Islamic State group. but no one has stepped forward to take responsibility for Sunday’s attacks in Dagestan’s regional capital Makhachkala and nearby Derbent, both bordering the Caspian Sea.
Dagestan Governor Sergei Melikov accused members of Islamic “sleeper cells” controlled from abroad, but gave no further details. He said in a video statement that the attackers aimed to “sow panic and fear” and tried to link the attack to Moscow’s military action in Ukraine – but also provided no evidence.
President Vladimir Putin had tried to blame Ukraine for the March attack, again without evidence and despite the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility. Kiev has vehemently denied any involvement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had received reports about Sunday’s attacks and efforts to help the victims.
The Investigative Committee, the country’s main criminal investigation agency, said all five attackers were killed. Of the 19 deaths, 15 were police officers.
Among the dead was Rev. Nikolai Kotelnikov, a 66-year-old Russian Orthodox priest at a church in Derbent. The attackers slit his throat before setting the church on fire, said Shamil Khadulayev, deputy head of a local public oversight body.
The Kele-Numaz Synagogue in Derbent was also set on fire.
Shortly after the attacks in Derbent, militants shot at a police post in Makhachkala and attacked a Russian Orthodox church and a synagogue there before being hunted down and killed by special forces.
According to Russian news reports, the attackers included the two sons and a nephew of Magomed Omarov, the head of the regional branch of the Kremlin’s main party, United Russia, in Dagestan. Omarov was detained by police for questioning, and United Russia quickly dismissed him from its ranks.
In the early 2000s, Dagestan saw almost daily attacks on police and other authorities, blamed on militant extremists. After the rise of the Islamic State group, many residents of the region joined it in Syria and Iraq.
Violence in Dagestan has subsided in recent years, but in a sign that extremist sentiments in the region are still running high, gangs rioted at an airport in October, targeting a flight from Israel. More than 20 people were injured – none of them Israelis – when hundreds of men, some carrying banners with anti-Semitic slogans, stormed the tarmac, chased passengers and threw stones at police.
The airport disaster challenged the Kremlin’s narrative that ethnic and religious groups in Russia coexist in harmony.
After the Moscow concert hall attack in March, Russia’s top security service said it had broken up a so-called “terrorist cell” in southern Russia and arrested four of its members who had supplied weapons and cash to suspected attackers in Moscow.
