NY.- A deadly attack on a police station and religious sites in southern Russia on Sunday revived the specter of a new wave of violence in the country’s North Caucasus region and highlighted the growing security challenges facing the country. Kremlin amid war demands in Ukraine.
An apparently coordinated attack by gunmen in the Dagestan region’s two largest cities, which left at least 20 people dead, was the deadliest attack in the region in 14 years.
It evoked memories of the intense violence that had gripped Russia’s predominantly Muslim region in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
That violence was caused by a combination of Islamic fundamentalism and organized crime.
Suppressing it was a focus for President Vladimir V. Putin after he came to power in 1999.
That legacy is currently at risk of being undermined by a new round of extremist violence.
In March, four gunmen killed 145 people at a concert hall near Moscow in an attack blamed on the Islamic State.
It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia in more than a decade, and it was carried out despite the United States providing Russia with detailed warning of the plot.
The challenge is more complicated now, as the war in Ukraine is draining the economy and efficiency of Russia’s security apparatus.
“The region is crowded with security agents, but they have not been able to control the situation because the resources and attention of the Russian authorities are predominantly focused on the war in Ukraine,” said Tanya Lokshina, director of a research group, referring to the case. from Dagestan.
She called Sunday’s attack “a gigantic failure by intelligence agencies.”
Sunday’s gunmen targeted a police station and synagogues and Orthodox churches in the cities of Makhachkala and Derbent.
Fifteen of the victims were police officers, another was an Orthodox priest, who was murdered in a church.
Five attackers were killed by security forces, regional authorities said.
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