Pro-Kremlin media appeared to downplay the claims made by Al-Azaim Media, a Russian-language channel with ties to the Islamic State in Khorasan province, which issued a statement late Sunday saying the attack was carried out in response to a call for attacks in support of the Islamic State group (ISIS).
Dagestan Governor Sergey Melikov said six suspects were killed during the operation.
“The latest call did not keep us waiting long,” Al-Azaim’s post said. “Our brothers in the Caucasus let us know that they are still strong. They have demonstrated their capabilities.”
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Dagestan is experiencing unrest apparently linked to Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In October, hundreds of people stormed Makhachkala airport to search Jewish air passengers who had arrived on a flight from Tel Aviv.
At the time, Russian Foreign Ministry officials claimed without evidence that Ukraine played a “direct and significant role” in the October airport riots and described the incident as a “provocation” orchestrated from outside Russia.
In March, gunmen allegedly linked to the Islamic State in Khorasan province attacked the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow, killing 145. At the time, Russian security services also implicated Ukraine, and the Kremlin disputed Washington’s claims that U.S. intelligence had provided specific warnings ahead of the attack.
While Russia’s deadly war in Ukraine has largely overshadowed all other recent events in the country, some officials have cautioned against finding Kiev’s involvement in every incident.
“If all terrorist attacks are blamed on Ukrainian and NATO conspiracies, this pink mist will get us into big trouble,” said Russian senator Dmitry Rogozin.
Gunmen opened fire in several locations in both cities on Sunday, including the Church of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary in Derbent, where Father Nikolai Kotelnikov, 66, was killed. Gunmen also attacked the city’s only synagogue, which was apparently empty at the time.
But even before local and national law enforcement managed to quell Sunday’s violence, officials were already blaming the United States and Ukraine.
Local lawmaker Abdulkarim Gadzhiev blamed Sunday’s attack on “Ukrainian and NATO special forces.” Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the State Duma’s foreign affairs committee and leader of the pro-Kremlin Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, blamed it on outside forces trying to divide Russians and “sow panic.”
Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the Federation Council (upper house of parliament), called the attack a “tragedy” planned outside Russia.
“The tragedy in Dagestan is a completely cynical, carefully planned provocation from abroad,” Matvienko said, adding that Russian security services would identify those behind the attack and swiftly “eliminate the extremist cell.”
Local official Magomed Omarov, head of the Sergokala region of Dagestan, had two sons arrested for allegedly taking part in the attack. Both were killed by police officers.
Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, called for a thorough investigation into Sunday’s attack. The committee said the attackers had been identified, according to state news agency TASS.
More than 20 people were injured in the attack, which appears to have been planned.
Russia has been hit by periodic attacks by groups believed to be affiliated with ISIS.
Earlier this month, two prisoners who had pledged allegiance to ISIS took two guards hostage at a detention center in the southern Russian city of Rostov. Russian authorities quickly lifted the siege on the prison, killing the hostage-takers and freeing the prisoners.
Thousands of Dagestanis left Russia in the past few years to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, an exodus apparently encouraged by the Kremlin, but hundreds were eventually sent back to prison after ISIS was defeated by the US-led coalition.
Islamic State has continued to carry out attacks on Russian soil, including a deadly attack at a popular Moscow concert venue in March that left at least 137 people dead in the country’s worst terror attack in two decades.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday rejected suggestions that Dagestan may be seeing a surge in Islamic extremism. “Society is integrated and criminal acts such as those seen yesterday in Dagestan are not supported by society, either in Russia or in Dagestan,” Peskov said.
In a sign of growing tensions between Moscow and Washington, several Russian officials, including Security Council deputy chairman and former president Dmitry Medvedev, linked the attack in Dagestan to a missile attack launched by Ukraine on the occupied Crimean peninsula on Sunday that killed four civilians, including two children.
Peskov on Monday blamed the United States for the attack on Crimea and said there “must be consequences.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had shot down five Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles supplied by the US to Ukraine that were fired towards the Crimean peninsula on Sunday.
The ministry said one of the missiles was intercepted by Russian air defense forces, deflected off its flight path and exploded over the city of Sevastopol.
The Ministry of Defense claimed, without providing evidence, that all ATACMS objectives are determined by the U.S. military.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Lynn Tracy on Monday to lodge a formal complaint about “the Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol, which caused numerous casualties, including children.”
Peskov described the attack on Crimea as “utterly barbaric” and condemned the United States and Europe.
“Last week, the president repeatedly said that it is not Ukrainians who are directing technologically advanced missiles at our targets,” Peskov said. “It is clear who is providing these launches.”
He called on journalists to “ask your colleagues in Europe, and especially in Washington, to ask your spokespeople why their governments are killing Russian children. Ask them this simple question.”
Speaking on his daily conference call with reporters, Peskov did not comment on what action Russia might take but pointed to previous threats by President Vladimir Putin to supply missiles to countries unfriendly to the United States.
Peskov said Russia was revising its nuclear doctrine, which takes into account “today’s realities,” and which stipulates that it may use nuclear weapons if its survival is threatened or in retaliation for a nuclear attack.
Putin, who visited North Korea and Vietnam last week, said Russia was “considering revising this doctrine” and warned that Russia would supply weapons to North Korea in retaliation for Western arms supplies to Ukraine.
“The West is supplying weapons to Ukraine while saying, ‘We don’t control this, so it doesn’t matter to us what Ukraine does with it,'” Putin said. “Why shouldn’t we take the same position and say that we supply something to someone, but we have no control over what happens afterwards? Let them think about it.”
Natalia Abakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
