| Suicide bombing, shooting kill 8 in Caucasus |
Sagopshi/Khas avyurt (Russia) A suicide bomber killed at least seven policemen attending the funeral of a colleague in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region of Ingushetia, hours after masked gunmen opened fire in a mosque in nearby Dagestan province, killing one person.
The seven policemen were killed and 11 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a wake being held on Sunday for a fellow officer shot a day earlier in the Malgobek district in the north of Ingushetia, Russian news agencies reported.
Witnesses said a man wearing camouflage clothing detonated a suicide belt after walking up to the group of officers, who had just arrived at the funeral. A pool of blood lay in the street outside the home in the village of Sagopshi.
“A suicide bomber went into the yard of a private home, where police officers had come to offer condolences to their late colleague, and activated a bomb device attached to a belt,” a spokesman for the local investigators, Zurab Geroyev, told the Interfax news agency.
The bombing came hours after two masked gunmen opened fire in a mosque in the nearby Dagestan region, killing one worshipper and wounding eight who were celebrating the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan.
A man who was injured in the attack said some 50 people were gathered in the mosque at the time.
“We were sitting, just finished our prayer and wanted to break our fast,” said Rukhit Samedov, wearing a blood-stained T-shirt and cradling his bandaged hand.
“People just sat down, started eating, and the door opened and there was shooting from automatic guns,” he said.
“They wore masks and some sort of camouflage.”
Law enforcement officers sent in a robotic device to defuse bombs left by the attackers at the mosque in the city of Khasavyurt.
“Eight people have been admitted to the hospital. Five of them are in the trauma unit, three are in intensive care. Two of those are in a very grave condition,” Ramazan Ismailov, the chief surgeon at the Khasavyurt hospital, said.
The state RIA news agency said later that one man had died in hospital.
The attacks shook Russia’s Muslim community, many of whom were celebrating Eid Al Fitr, known as Uraza-Bairam in Russia, to mark the end of a month of fasting for Ramadan.
Reuters
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