At Least Five Police Officers Dead and Priest Beheaded After Terrorist Attacks on Church and Synagogue in Dagestan, Russia

At Least Five Police Officers Dead and Priest Beheaded After Terrorist Attacks on Church and Synagogue in Dagestan, Russia – Officials Allege Terrorists Were Using NATO Supplied Weapons

Jim Hoft

At least five police officers were killed and a priest was beheaded in terrorist attacks in Dagestan on Sunday.

Islamist terror attack in Dagestan, Russia against a synagogue and a church. At least 5 police officers k*lled and 1 priest beheaded. The bearded terrorists are all dressed in black and are shouting “Allahu Akbar”

Russian officials say the terrorists are using NATO provided weapons.

Russia Today reported:

An Orthodox priest was brutally murdered after two churches and a synagogue came under attack on Sunday in Russia’s southern region of Dagestan, Interior Ministry spokesperson Gayana Garieva has said.

The assailants reportedly broke into an Orthodox church in the city of Derbent and killed the archpriest, Father Nikolay Kotelnikov, by slitting his throat, Shamil Khadulaev, the head of the regional Public Oversight Committee, which monitors the observance of human rights in prisons, said on his Telegram channel. 

A security guard named Mikhail who worked in the church was shot by the assailants. The man was only armed with a gas pistol, according to Khadulaev. Other clergymen have locked themselves in the church, waiting for help, he added. 

The terrorists attacked the church on Pentecost Sunday, immediately after the evening service and shortly before the church was closed.

The priest who was killed was 66 years old and was seriously ill, according to Khadulaev. In the 1980s Father Nikolay was commissioned from the southern Russian city of Stavropol to Dagestan and served at Derbent’s Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He spent a total of 40 years serving there, and had a wife, three children and grandchildren, according to local media reports.

The Moscow Times has more – including reports that the terrorists were using NATO weapons.

“According to information at this moment in Makhachkala, law enforcement offices have eliminated four fighters,” the Interior Ministry’s spokeswoman wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee has introduced a counterterrorism regime in Dagestan, with video posted online showing that roads leading in and out of Derbent have been closed.

Security forces have cordoned off the militants in the city of Derbent and are preparing to storm the building where they are entrenched, Interfax cited regional law enforcement as saying.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it has opened a criminal terrorism probe over the armed attacks in Derbent and Makhachkala.

Residents of Makhachkala have been asked to remain in their homes.

The Dagestan Interior Ministry’s spokeswoman also said that “unknown [attackers] fired on a police car” on the central square of the village of Sergokal, located some 65 kilometres from Makhachkala, RIA Novosti news agency reported. At least one police officer was wounded in the attack. 

Abdulkhakim Gadzhiev, a State Duma Deputy from Dagestan, claimed without evidence that Ukraine and NATO were behind the attack.

“I think intelligence services of Ukraine and NATO member states could be behind this [attack] …Because we [Russia] are claiming all-around success in the special military operation, so they want to destabilize the situation inside the country,” Gadzhiev was cited as telling reporters in the wake of the attack.