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Russia is battling another major terror attack, with at least 19 people killed and 25 injured in coordinated shootings at multiple parks of prayer in Russia’s southernmost Dagestan republic.
More than 130 people were killed at a Moscow concert hall in March in a terrorist attack claimed by ISIS-K, and it is the second attack in three months that has come at a cost to President Vladimir Putin’s self-proclaimed reputation. As a pacesetter ready to contract the line around the vast, windy nation.
The surge in violence comes as long-running ethnic tensions have resurfaced, both through Putin’s war against Ukraine through a drive to fill Russia’s military ranks and because of the ongoing war in the Middle East. have increased.
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Gunmen opened fire on some prayer parks and police traffic restrictions in two cities in Muslim-majority Dagestan on Sunday, killing at least 15 police officers and four civilians, including a pastor.
According to a statement from the Russian Jewish Congress (RJC), two synagogues – one within the city of Derbent and one within the city of Makhachkala – have been attacked.
According to the RJC, attackers at the synagogue in Derbent “set fire to the building using Molotov cocktails” while police and security guards were killed during the attack.
In the provincial capital Makhachkala, Russian state-news agency TASS reported that a church security guard was killed in a shooting at the Svyatoslav-Uspensky Sobor, and that 19 people had barricaded themselves in the complex during the attack. An attack on a police traffic post in Makhachkala was also reported.
There was disagreement over the immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but law enforcement agencies told TASS that the attackers were “followers of an international terrorist organization.”
The Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Dagestan said it has announced an investigation into suspected attacks under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
TASS reported on Monday that five gunmen had been identified and that some of them were similar to the head of the Sergokalinsky district, which lies between Derbent and Makhachkala. It identified some of the men as former combined martial arts fighter Gadzhimurad Kagirov. Kagirov took part in the attack on Derbent and was also a cousin of Magomed Omarov, the head of the Sergokalinsky district, it was claimed. The government alleged that Omarov’s son and nephew were also some of the attackers.
Dagestan is located in the Caucasus region of Russia on the western coast of the Caspian Sea.
The republic is in some ways a microcosm of Russia’s diversity. The mountainous region is home to more than 30 ethnic groups with distinct languages and is a majority Muslim republic that has traditionally been home to a variety of Islamic religious practices.
It has a small Jewish community – Judaism is certainly one of the common religions of Dagestan, practiced by communities of Mountain Jews, who speak a form of Persian – although the latter interacts with Muslim neighbours. Due to co-existence, this community has declined through migration.
The Caucasus was generally incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, with a long history of resentment against rule through Moscow in the Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods.
Then after the collapse of the Soviet Union, rebels in neighboring Chechnya fought two separatist wars for self-rule – which Russia classified as terrorism and responded with techniques that destroyed much of the capital, Grozny. Putin then added the dreaded warlord Ramzan Kadyrov to Chechnya, who has dominated with a stranglehold ever since.
In Dagestan, Russian security forces fought an Islamist insurgency in the mountainous region in the 2000s that spread from neighboring Chechnya, although attacks have recently become rare.
However the latest developments have again put the traditionally stressed pocket under threat.
Non-secular and ethnic tensions in Russia
There are more than 200 ethnic minority communities living in Russia, which spans 11 age regions and is home to approximately 144 million people.
Some of these communities were particularly drained by Putin’s war in Ukraine, where ethnic minorities were disproportionately organized to confront the horrors of Moscow’s human tide techniques.
In 2022, protests against Putin’s mobilization orders broke out in some ethnic minority regions, including Dagestan. Geolocated video from CNN shows women pleading with police outside a theater in the capital, Makhachkala.
“Why are you taking away our children? Who attacked whom? It is Russia that attacked Ukraine,” he can be heard saying in the video.
Israel’s war against Hamas following the brutal October 7 attacks has caused international tension due to day-by-day images of debris in Gaza, including in the Caucasus.
Putin has performed a brilliant global balancing act, putting himself forward as a potential mediator and calling for restraint from all sides – a position that has drawn praise from Hamas.
However, this confidence was shaken when anti-Semitic rioters stormed the Makhachkala Uytash airport in Dagestan, where a plane from Israel had arrived.
According to the local government, at least 20 people were injured and 60 detained in the chaotic clashes. Multiple videos on social media showed a family of people at the airport and on the runway, some waving Palestinian flags, others making their way through closed doors inside the international terminal.
Interreligious violence is something Russian leader Putin is “very, very concerned about,” former CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty said Sunday about the attacks in Dagestan.
Russia has a complex web of relationships in the Middle East: Putin supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (Israel’s enemy); He is dependent on Iran (another enemy of Israel) for a stockpile of drones to attack Ukraine; And he is a high-ranking friend of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, another energy player in the pocket.
He has also maintained cordial ongoing relations with Israeli opposition figures, even though his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cooled.
The coordinated attacks in Dagestan came just weeks after Russia suffered its worst terrorist attack in years.
In March, more than 130 people were killed when attackers attacked the complex, a major live performance venue on the outskirts of Moscow.
ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the massacre and four gunmen from the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan have been charged with terrorism.
The surprise terror attack came exactly a year after Putin won a platform-controlled election that tightened his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century.
For a pace-maker that has long promised security and stability to Russians, the main assault on the Russian scene was another tough loss.
The sentiment expressed through violence – mixed with seedy films – sparked a tide of xenophobia among some against Central Asian migrant workers in general.
Immigrants from the Central Asian states of the former Soviet Union – Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan – have historically been a good source of cheap activities in Russia.
Putin called on Russia to remain united after the March attack.
“We should never forget that we are a multinational, multi-religious country. We must always treat our brothers, representatives of other religions, with respect, as we always do – Muslims, Jews, everyone,” he said.
But Sunday’s attack in Dagestan shows that deep cracks are growing in Russia’s border areas.
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