The southern Russian region of Dagestan is observing the first of three days of mourning following the bloody attack by Islamic terrorists who killed at least 19 people, most of them law enforcement officers, and attacked places of worship in criminal attacks apparently coordinated in two different locations.
Sunday's violence in the regional capital of Dagestan (a region where the population is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim), Makhachkala, and in nearby Derbent were the latest that authorities have attributed to Islamic extremists in the North Caucasus region, as well as the bloodiest in Russia since March, when a group of armed terrorists opened fire during a concert in a theater on the outskirts of Moscow, killing 145 people.
A member of the Islamic State terror group in Afghanistan who claimed responsibility for the March raid was quick to praise the attack in Dagestan, saying it was carried out by "brothers from the Caucasus who have shown that they are still strong".
US-based analysts in the area immediately argued that the North Caucasus branch of the Islamic State group was likely behind the attack, describing the attack as "complex and coordinated" in its execution.
Dagestan Governor Sergei Melikov accused the attackers of being members of Islamic "sleeper cells" directed from abroad, but has not yet provided further details. In a video statement he claimed that the attackers aimed to "sow panic and fear" and attempted to link the attack to Moscow's aggression in Ukraine, but he has not yet provided evidence for this.
President Vladimir Putin had attributed responsibility for the March attack to Ukraine, despite Islamic State terrorists claiming responsibility. Kiev had immediately firmly denied any involvement, but the doubt of Ukrainian involvement or Western secret services remained among the Russian population, probably increasing consensus towards the "special operation" (as Russia calls the invasion).
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Moscow government was doing everything to help the victims after receiving the report on Sunday's attacks while the Investigative Committee, the country's main state criminal investigation agency, said all five the attackers were neutralized. It should be noted that of the 19 people killed, 15 were police officers who intervened on the scene.
Also among the dead is the Reverend Nikolai Kotelnikov, a 66-year-old Russian Orthodox priest, murdered in a church in Derbent. The attackers brutally killed him before setting fire to the church, according to Shamil Khadulayev, deputy head of the local public control body, the attack occurred while Orthodox faithful were celebrating Pentecost,
The Kele-Numaz synagogue in Derbent was also set on fire.
Shortly after the attacks in Derbent, militants fired on a police post in Makhachkala and reportedly attacked a Russian Orthodox church and another synagogue before being caught up and neutralized by special forces. Despite this intervention it appears (source of Dagestan medical authorities) that 16 people, including 13 policemen, have been hospitalized with injuries and four officers are still in serious condition.
According to Russian press sources, the attackers included the two sons and a nephew of Magomed Omarov of the United Russia party in Dagestan. Omarov was immediately detained by the police for questioning and United Russia would immediately expel him.
In the early 2000s, Dagestan was the scene of attacks against the police and other authorities, attributed to Islamic extremists (many residing in the region) who, after the creation of the Islamic State group, joined it in Syria and Iraq. Violence in Dagestan had eased in recent years, but in a sign that extremist sentiments are still strong in the region, a group of people violently protested at an airport in October, targeting a flight from Israel. More than 20 people - none of them Israelis - were injured when anti-Israel protesters, some carrying banners with anti-Semitic slogans, rushed into the airport area, chased passengers, threatened their safety and threw stones at police .
The airport protest had, at that juncture, called into question the Kremlin's narrative that ethnic and religious groups coexist in harmony in Russia or at least, in that region.
After the Moscow concert hall attack in March, Russia's top security agency reported that it had broken up what it called a "terrorist cell" in southern Russia and arrested four of its members who had supplied weapons and money to the suspected attackers in Moscow and it should be noted that the authorities' response to Sunday's attack appears to have been significantly more intense than what has been seen in the past, but still lacking, especially in terms of response times.
Local law enforcement was certainly caught by surprise by this attack and it demonstrating that there is still some disconnect between Russia's counterterrorism capability and its Islamic terrorist capability within Russia.
Today some analysts are arguing that Islamic terrorism entirely within Russia and Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory have the common objective of crumbling the apparent and, for now, granitic consensus for Putin on the part of the Russian people.
The hope of many in the West is that the Russians themselves will act for "Putin away - end of the war". terrorist massacres in places of worship could have the opposite effect and increase internal consensus for the Russian president.
Photo: Kremlin