Russian special forces freed two prison guards and shot dead six prisoners linked to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group who had taken the agents hostage in a detention center in the city of Rostov, in southern Russia, this Sunday (16), local media reported.
State media said some of the men were convicted of terrorism crimes and accused of membership in Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall in March.
The six terrorists, one of them wearing an IS flag headband bearing Arabic inscription, tore down window grilles and descended several floors using a rope before holding the guards hostage with a knife and a fire axe.
In a video published by Telegram channel 112, one of them was shown brandishing a knife next to one of the tied up guards. In negotiations with the authorities, they demanded to be released from prison.
But Russian special forces decided to storm the prison center. An intense exchange of gunfire can be heard in videos published on Russian Telegram channels. Channel 112 showed the six dead.
“The criminals have been eliminated,” Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement, saying a special operation had been carried out to free the hostages.
“The staff who were being held hostage have been released. They were not injured,” the prison service said. The images also showed ambulances entering the complex.
Islamic State, considered a terrorist group by some countries including the United States, was defeated in Iraq and Syria by a combination of Washington-led forces, Kurdish fighters and Russian, Iranian and Syrian soldiers. The group splintered and splintered into different regional terrorist organizations that have claimed a series of deadly attacks across the world.
The Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), named after an ancient term for a region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the March attack on the Crocus music venue outside Moscow, which killed 145 people.
According to Russian media, the militants were from the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, and three of them were detained in 2022 for planning an attack on a court in another Russian republic, Karachay-Cherkessia.
#Russia #kills #members #attempted #prison #break