Police officer killed in Daesh attack in Russia’s Dagestan

A policeman has been killed in a stabbing attack in Dagestan in the southernmost part of Russia, the second knife attack on Russian police this month.  

Local media said Monday that two attackers stabbed the policeman to death and injured another officer at a petrol station in the town of Kaspiysk in Dagestan, North Caucasus.

The injured police officer suffered gunshot wounds which posed no serious risks to his life, a regional Health Ministry spokeswoman told TASS news agency.

The attackers were shot by the police, the reports said, adding that the incident could be an attempt to repeat a pattern of stabbings, which has rocked Western European countries over the past years.

In a post on Twitter, the Daesh-affilitaed Amaq news outlet claimed the attack.

The regional Investigative Committee said the attackers had been “neutralized” at the scene of the incident. It did not elaborate on potential motives, but said in its statement that it had opened a probe into the policeman's murder.

Earlier, TASS quoted unidentified sources as saying that two knives and items with the Daesh logo had been recovered from the attackers after the assault. A law enforcement source also said that one of the attackers had a black banner, similar to that of Daesh, in his rucksack.

Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya region, has been a hotbed for militants seeking to join Daesh. Thousands are believed to have been recruited by the terror group over the past years from Dagestan, Chechnya and other areas in Russia.

The Russian military began a campaign to help the Syrian government in its anti-terror battle in September 2015. Russian officials said at the time the operation was also aimed at preventing the return of nationals fighting alongside the ranks of Daesh and other terror groups in Syria.

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