‘Active phase’ of counterterrorism action in Russia’s Derbent over – security officials
Police in Dagestan, Russia have finished the active phase of the operation against militants in the city of Derbent, where a church and a synagogue came under attack earlier on Sunday.
The development was announced late in the day by the National Antiterrorism Committee, which added that two assailants had been killed.
The news agency TASS has released blurred images that it says are of the bodies of the two gunmen killed in Derbent.
There was a wave of violence in the southern Russian republic, with another attack reported in the capital Makhachkala, where a police station came under fire from another group of militants.
Several police officers were killed while confronting the militants. One of them was the police chief of the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni, who had gone to help fellow officers in Derbent and was mortally wounded there, according to the regional Interior Ministry.
An Orthodox Christian priest was among the victims of the church assault in the same city.
A significant number of people were injured in Makhachkala, where officers and militants were engaged in street fighting. A total of 16 people, including 13 policemen, were rushed to the main regional hospital, according to the latest update. Previous reports from the regional capital said four militants were killed there.
