MOSCOW: The number of people killed in a wave of coordinated attacks in Russia’s southern Dagestan region last month has risen to 22, the regional head said Monday.
Gunmen simultaneously attacked two churches, two synagogues and a police checkpoint in two cities in Dagestan on June 23.
On Monday, regional governor Sergei Melikov said the number of those killed had risen to 22 — after a previously reported toll of 21.
“One police officer died the next day from severe wounds. In total 17 police officers and five civilians,” were killed, Russian news agencies quoted Melikov as saying.
The Kremlin has dismissed fears the attacks could mark a return to the kind of separatist violence that marred the historically restive region throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
The attacks came just three months after Daesh fighters killed more than 140 in an assault on a Moscow concert hall, the deadliest terror attack in Russia for almost two decades.
Melikov also said Monday that one of the assailants had taken part in a riot at Dagestan’s main airport in October.
Hundreds of men had stormed the runway of Makhachkala airport in an anti-Israel riot when news spread on social media that a flight from Tel Aviv was due to land in the Muslim-majority region.
That had come amid rising tensions over the war in Gaza.
In the June attack, two synagogues were targeted in Makhachkala and the city of Derbent, where a fire started by Molotov cocktails completely destroyed the interior of the building.
A Russian Orthodox priest was also killed.
Melikov also hinted Monday that the West had been involved in whipping up the “ideological state” of the assailants, without providing evidence or specifying who he was referring.
Dagestan terror attack toll hits 22
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Dagestan terror attack toll hits 22
- Gunmen simultaneously attacked two churches, two synagogues and a police checkpoint in two cities in Dagestan on June 23
- On Monday, regional governor Sergei Melikov said the number of those killed had risen to 22
British navy says it tracked Russian sub for three days in Channel
- The Russian ships had arrived from the North Sea and entered the Channel.
- “Expert aircrew were prepared to pivot to anti-submarine operations if Krasnodar had dived below the surface,” the statement said
LONDON: The British navy said Thursday it tracked a Russian submarine navigating through the Channel for three days, as it steps up efforts to police its seas against such threats.
A British naval supply ship with an on-board helicopter was deployed to track the stealthy Kilo-class submarine Krasnodar and the tug Altay, the Royal Navy said in a statement.
The Russian ships had arrived from the North Sea and entered the Channel.
“Expert aircrew were prepared to pivot to anti-submarine operations if Krasnodar had dived below the surface,” the statement said.
But it sailed on the surface throughout the operation, despite unfavorable weather conditions.
Near the island of Ouessant, off northwest France, the British said they handed over monitoring of the vessels to a NATO ally, without saying which one.
The British military carried out a similar shadowing operation in July, after spotting the Russian sub Novorossiysk in its territorial waters.
Defense minister John Healey announced on Monday the launch of a multi-million pound program to improve the Royal Navy’s capabilities in the face of Moscow’s “underwater threats.”
According to London, Russian submarine activity in British waters has increased by about a third over the past two years.
In early December, the UK and Norway signed a cooperation agreement to jointly operate a fleet of frigates to “hunt down” these submarines in the North Atlantic.
