A terrorist attack in Dagestan on Sunday evening that killed at least 20 people underscored Russia's growing difficulty in curbing the growth of terrorism at home as its security forces focus on the war in Ukraine and quelling discontent in the country.
The attacks, in which assailants with automatic rifles stormed churches and a synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent and the capital of Dagestan, Makhachkala, appear to have taken officials there by surprise, writes the British "Guardian".
In the attacks, 15 policemen and five civilians, including an Orthodox priest, were killed, and according to the authorities, 46 people were wounded. At least five attackers were killed.
The attackers set fire to a church and a synagogue, prompting Russian authorities to worry that there could be an outbreak of inter-ethnic violence.
No group has claimed responsibility, but analysts suggest the attacks appear to be linked to Islamic State's North Caucasus branch, Vilayet Kavkaz. "The most likely perpetrator is the Islamic State," Riccardo Vale, an expert on that group, told Reuters. "ID has means and capacities, and it also has a foothold in that area," he said.
The new attacks, which came just months after a Moscow concert hall massacre in which IS-linked extremists killed 145 people, are fueling fears of a rise in radicalized young people in Russia and the North Caucasus, where social tensions on multiple fronts are close firing points, "The Guardian" writes. Muslim-majority Dagestan, where protests have been organized against mobilization for the war in Ukraine, is one of the most unstable regions in Russia.
The clearest sign of social turmoil was the anti-Semitic riots when last October a mob stormed the Makhachkala airport in search of Jewish travelers arriving from Israel.
Exiled Russian rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt accused the authorities of leaving Jews and other citizens to attacks like Sunday's shootings, focusing the country's security apparatus on Kremlin critics instead of terrorist threats.
“Instead of using law enforcement, the interior ministry and the FSB (security service) to protect Russian citizens, they are being used to exterminate any opposition to the regime. And here we see the results that terrorists like IS succeed time and again in carrying out attacks on places of worship, on cultural events."
Valentina Matviyenko, president of the Federation Council of Russia, called on the residents of Russia and Dagestan to "show their maturity and avoid an emotional reaction, despite the seriousness of what happened. Not to "take the easiest, wrong path of escalating inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions and hostility".
To prevent this from happening, Russian officials tried to portray the attack as a "provocation" by outside forces, despite abundant evidence of domestic terrorism in Russia dating back to the devastating 1990s wars in the North Caucasus.
"Of course, it is clear to us who is behind the organization of these terrorist attacks," said Sergey Melikov, the head of Dagestan. "We understand what the organizers were trying to achieve," he said and added that "sleeper cells were certainly prepared, including those from abroad."
The two attackers are the alleged sons of the head of the Sergokalinsky district of Dagestan, Magomed Omarov, who was taken into custody for questioning. His information was removed from the website of the ruling United Russia, of which he is a member. Russian media reported yesterday that he told investigators that he knew that several members of his family had been radicalized in recent years.
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