After Dagestan attack, Russian officials downplay Islamic State claims

Pro-Kremlin media appeared to downplay claims by Al Azaim Media, a Russian-language channel associated with Islamic State in Khorasan province, which released a statement late Sunday that the attack was carried out in response to calls for attacks on behalf of the Islamic State, or ISIS, organization.

Dagestan Governor Sergei Melikov said six suspects were killed during the operation.

“Our recent call did not keep us waiting long,” Al Azaim’s message said. “Our Caucasian brothers let us know that they are still strong. They showed what they were capable of.

Dagestan has experienced unrest apparently linked to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

In October, hundreds of people stormed Makhachkala airport in search of Jewish air passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv.

At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry officials claimed without evidence that Ukraine played a “direct and key role” in the October airport riot, calling it a “provocation” orchestrated since outside Russia.

In March, gunmen suspected of having links to Islamic State in Khorasan province attacked the Crocus City Hall concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, killing 145 people. At the time, Russian security officials had also implicated Ukraine, and the Kremlin disputed Washington’s account that U.S. intelligence had shared a specific warning before that attack.

As Russia’s deadly war in Ukraine overshadows virtually every other event in Russia these days, some officials have warned against seeing kyiv’s hand in every incident.

If every terrorist attack is “blamed on the intrigues of Ukraine and NATO, this pink fog will lead us into big problems,” said Russian Senator Dmitry Rogozin.

On Sunday, gunmen opened fire at several locations in the two cities, including the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Derbent, where a priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov, 66, was killed. They also attacked the city’s only synagogue, which was apparently empty at the time.

But even before local and state law enforcement took control of the violence Sunday, officials were already blaming the United States and Ukraine.

A local MP, Abdulkarim Gadzhiev, blamed Sunday’s attack on the “special services of Ukraine and NATO countries.” The pro-Kremlin leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, Leonid Slutsky, who heads the foreign affairs committee in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, blamed “external forces” aimed at dividing Russians and to “sow panic”.

Valentina Matvienko, chairwoman of the Federation Council, the upper house, called the attacks a “tragedy” planned outside Russia.

“The tragedy in Dagestan is an absolutely cynical and carefully planned foreign provocation,” Matvienko said, adding that Russian security agencies would identify those responsible for the attacks and “quickly eliminate extremist cells.”

A local official, Magomed Omarov, head of Dagestan’s Sergokala district, was arrested after two of his sons allegedly participated in the attacks. Both were killed by law enforcement.

The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, called for a thorough investigation into Sunday’s attacks. The investigative committee said the attackers had been identified, according to Tass, an official news agency.

More than two dozen other people were injured in the attacks, which appeared to be coordinated.

Russia has seen intermittent attacks from declared members of ISIS.

Earlier this month, two prisoners who had pledged allegiance to ISIS took two prison guards hostage at a detention center in the Rostov region of southern Russia. Russian authorities quickly ended the siege of the prison, killing the hostage-takers and freeing the captives.

In previous years, thousands of Dagestanis left Russia to fight alongside the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – an exodus apparently encouraged by the Kremlin. However, hundreds of people were eventually brought back to serve prison sentences after ISIS was defeated by a US-led coalition.

Islamic State has continued to claim responsibility for attacks in Russia, including a deadly attack on a popular concert hall in Moscow in March. At least 137 people have been killed in the country’s worst terrorist attack in 20 years.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday rejected the suggestion that Islamist militancy could be increasing in Dagestan. “Society is consolidated and the type of criminal behavior that we saw yesterday in Dagestan is not supported by society, neither in Russia nor in Dagestan,” Peskov said.

In another sign of deep tensions between Moscow and Washington, several Russian officials, including the deputy head of the Security Council, former President Dmitry Medvedev, linked the Dagestan attack to a Ukrainian missile strike Sunday on occupied Crimea, which killed four civilians, including two children. .

Peskov on Monday accused the United States of being responsible for the attack on Crimea, saying that this “must have consequences”.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had shot down five Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles supplied to Ukraine by the United States. The missiles were fired at Crimea on Sunday.

The ministry said one of the missiles exploded over the city of Sevastopol after deviating from its flight path when intercepted by Russian air defenses.

Without providing evidence, the Department of Defense claimed that all ATACMS targets were determined by the US military.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy on Monday to file a formal complaint regarding “the targeted Ukrainian missile strike on Sevastopol that caused numerous casualties, including children.”

Peskov called the Crimean attack “absolutely barbaric” and placed responsibility on the United States and Europe.

“Just last week, the president repeatedly said that those pointing technologically sophisticated missiles at targets were not the Ukrainians,” Peskov said. “It is clear who is responsible for these launches.”

He called on journalists to “ask my colleagues in Europe, and in Washington in particular, the press secretaries why their governments are killing Russian children. Just ask them this simple question.

Peskov, in his daily conference call with reporters, did not comment on what steps Russia would take, but he pointed to President Vladimir Putin’s previous threats to supply missiles to countries hostile to the United States.

Peskov said Russia was revising its nuclear doctrine – which currently states that Russia can use nuclear weapons if its existence is threatened or in retaliation for a nuclear attack – to reflect “today’s realities.”

Last week, during a visit to North Korea and Vietnam, Putin said Moscow was “thinking” about revising the doctrine. Putin also threatened to supply Russian weapons to North Korea in retaliation for Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.

The West is “supplying weapons to Ukraine saying, ‘We don’t have control here, so how Ukraine uses them is none of our business,'” Putin said. “Why shouldn’t we take the same position and say we provide something to someone but we have no control over what happens next? Let them think about it.

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.