MOSCOW (AP) — The death toll in the attack The number of militants attacked by Islamist militants in Russia’s southern region of Dagestan has risen to 21 after an injured police officer died in a hospital, officials said Tuesday.
Sunday’s attack, in which militants attacked Christian and Jewish places of worship and shot at police in the towns of Derbent and Makhachkala in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region, was the deadliest in Russia since March, when Gunmen opened fire during a concert in a Moscow suburb, killing 145 people.
A branch of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan, which claimed responsibility for the attack in March, was quick to praise the attack in Dagestan, saying it was carried out by “brothers in the Caucasus who showed that they are still strong.”
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s main investigative agency, said all five attackers were killed.
Mavsum Ragimov, head of the Derbent region, said on Tuesday that a police sergeant died in a hospital from his injuries, bringing the total number of victims to 21, 16 of them police officers.
Medical authorities in Dagestan said Monday that at least 46 people were injured, 13 of them police officers.
Among the dead was Rev. Nikolai Kotelnikov, a 66-year-old Russian Orthodox priest at a church in Derbent. The attack came as Orthodox believers celebrated Pentecost, also known as Trinity Sunday.
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 declined in recent years, but in a sign that extremist sentiments in the region are still running high, gangs have risen in rebellion. at an airport there 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.
