A synagogue, an Orthodox church and police checkpoints were targeted by gunmen in a coordinated series of attacks in Russia's southernmost Dagestan province on Sunday night. Four civilians, including a priest, and 15 police officers were killed in the attacks, investigators said Monday.
"According to preliminary data, 15 law enforcement officers were killed, as well as four civilians, including an Orthodox priest," Russia's national Investigative Committee said in a statement, adding that five perpetrators were also "liquidated."
The spokeswoman for Dagestan's interior ministry, Gayana Gariyeva, had earlier told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that a 66-year-old Russian Orthodox priest was among those killed.
The attacks took place in Dagestan's largest city, Makhachkala, and in the coastal city of Derbent. Russia's National Anti-Terrorist Committee described the attacks, in the predominantly Muslim region with a history of armed militancy, as terrorist acts.
Dagestan's Interior Ministry said a group of armed men shot at a synagogue and a church in the city of Derbent, located on the Caspian Sea. Both the church and the synagogue caught fire, according to state media. Almost simultaneously, reports appeared about an attack on a church and a traffic police post in the Dagestan capital Makhachkala.
The authorities announced a counter-terrorist operation in the region. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.
At least some of the attackers initially fled in a car, but it was not immediately clear whether the five slain suspects accounted for all of the attackers or if more were still believed to be on the loose.
