Moscow –
The death toll from a series of brazen attacks on churches and synagogues in Russia’s predominantly Muslim region of Dagestan rose to 20 on Monday after gunmen went on the rampage in coordinated attacks in two of the republic’s main cities.
Gunmen armed with automatic weapons entered an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent on Sunday evening, setting fire to an icon in the church and killing a 66-year-old Orthodox priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov.
In the town of Makhachkala, about 125 kilometers north on the Caspian Sea coast, attackers shot at a traffic police post and attacked a church.
