Gunmen opened fire in two towns in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan, targeting a synagogue, two Orthodox churches and a police station, killing at least 15 police officers and a priest, Russian media reported.
“This is a day of tragedy for Dagestan and the whole country,” Sergey Melikov, governor of the Dagestan region, said in a video posted early Monday on the Telegram messaging app.
In the city of Derbent, gunmen attacked a synagogue, home to a Jewish community in the predominantly Muslim region. Russian state media TASS reported that the attackers also fired at two nearby Orthodox churches, killing a policeman and a priest.
Footage posted on social media by Derbent shows a group of gunmen engaged in a heavy firefight with police. Officials said the synagogue in Derbent had been set on fire, and a video from the scene emerged showing flames coming from the UNESCO-listed building.
In a separate shooting that happened simultaneously, a group opened fire on police in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, located about 75 miles north along the Caspian Sea coast. According to local authorities, at least one policeman was killed and six others were injured.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks in the volatile region. “We understand who is behind the organization of the terrorist attacks and what goal they pursued,” Melikov said, without giving further details.
Russian state media quoted law enforcement officials as saying the attackers included two sons of the head of central Dagestan’s Sergokala region, who they said had been detained by investigators.
Melikov said that in addition to the policemen, there were also several civilians among the dead, including an Orthodox priest who had worked in Derbent for more than 40 years.
Six of the gunmen were shot and killed during the incidents, Melikov said, but a Russian state news agency, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, put the number at five.
It was not possible to independently verify reports of how many people or gunmen were killed in the attacks.
The Russian Investigative Committee qualified the shooting as a terrorist attack and launched an investigation.
June 24-26 have been declared days of mourning in Dagestan, Melikov said, with flags at half-mast and all entertainment events cancelled.
The restive region in the 2000s was hit by Islamist insurgencies that spilled over from neighboring Chechnya, with Russian security forces acting aggressively to combat extremists in the region.
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Attacks have become less frequent in recent years, with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claiming in 2017 that it had defeated insurgents in the region.
But Russia has recently suffered a spate of Islamist terror attacks, raising questions about whether its vast security agencies have been distracted by the invasion of Ukraine and the domestic crackdown on anti-war dissent.
In March, the Afghan branch of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province, claimed responsibility for mass shooting in a Moscow concert hall, the deadliest terrorist attack in years, leaving 139 dead.
Last week, Russian special forces freed two guards and killed six IS-linked men who had taken them hostage at a detention center in the southern city of Rostov.
Dagestan also experienced a series of anti-Semitic incidents. Mostly last year a mob storms the airport in Makhachkala, looking for Jewish passengers arriving from Israel.
Reuters contributed to this report