MOSCOW: The Daesh group on Monday claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on churchgoers in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region.
At least five people were killed and four wounded when a gunman opened fire with a hunting rifle on people leaving a Sunday service at a Russian Orthodox church in the Dagestan city of Kizlyar.
Authorities say the gunman was a local resident, and his wife has been detained for questioning. But police have not commented on the possible motive for the attack.
Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim region situated between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea. Following two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya, an Islamic insurgency spread to Dagestan.
A statement from the Daesh group, posted Monday on a Daesh-affiliated militant website, claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying a Muslim fighter attacked “a Christian temple” in Kizlyar. The authenticity of the statement could not be confirmed, but the website is regularly used by Daesh for posting militant statements.
The attack happened less than two weeks after several top officials in Dagestan were arrested on embezzlement charges, part of the Kremlin’s efforts to strengthen control over the volatile region. The officials, including the head of Dagestan’s government, were arrested at their homes before dawn in a swift, military-style operation in Dagestan and flown to Moscow. Observers saw the latest arrests as part of Kremlin efforts to rein in the local elites and establish a degree of control over the economically struggling region.
Daesh owns up to church shooting in Russia
Daesh owns up to church shooting in Russia
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
