RUSSIA: Eight people injured in an overnight gun attack at a Russian mosque, police defuses a large bomb after the shooting

Record ID: 860057

  • Title: RUSSIA: Eight people injured in an overnight gun attack at a Russian mosque, police defuses a large bomb after the shooting
  • Date: 21st August 2012
  • Summary: MORE OF INJURED MEN IN HOSPITAL ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) MAN INJURED IN ATTACK, RUKHIT SAMEDOV, SAYING: "We were sitting, we'd just finished our prayer and wanted to break fast. People were sitting, maybe 50 people were there. People just sat down, started eating, and the door opened and shooting started from automatic guns. People were injured, eight people. I can't understand if they were terrorists or what." BLOOD SOAKED HAND IN BANDAGE (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) MAN INJURED IN ATTACK, RUKHIT SAMEDOV, SAYING: "They wore masks and some sort of camouflage. Black camouflage, like special forces wear. And they had masks too." BLOOD STAINS ON TROUSERS INJURED MEN IN HOSPITAL ROOM
  • Embargoed: 5th September 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • City:
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Crime,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA35CAWRMTM44XMQZQYB8TV8YF0
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Eight people were injured in Russia's restive Dagestan region late on Saturday (August 18) when a man armed with guns attacked worshippers in a mosque.
    Local police, using a robot, disarmed a bomb planted in the Khasavyurt mosque early on Sunday (August 19), while survivors of the attack were rushed to hospital.
    Law enforcement authorities said that the improvised explosive device (IED) was extremely powerful with 30 to 40 kg of TNT, according to news reports.
    Khasavyurt hospital's chief surgeon said several of the injured were in critical condition.

    "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," chief surgeon Ramazan Ismailov said.
    Survivors of the attack descibed gunmen striking just after prayers in the mosque.

    "We were sitting, we'd just finished our prayer and wanted to break fast. People were sitting, maybe 50 people were there. People just sat down, started eating, and the door opened and shooting started from automatic guns. People were injured, eight people. I can't understand if they were terrorists or what," Rukhit Samedov, who was injured in the attack said.

    "They wore masks and some sort of camouflage. Black camouflage, like special forces wear. And they had masks too," Samedov added.
    More than a decade after federal forces toppled a separatist government in a war in Chechnya, Russia is still struggling to contain an Islamic insurgency across its mainly Muslim Caucasus mountains region.
    The ranks of militants fighting to carve an Islamic state out of Russia's southern fringe are swelled by anger over joblessness and allegations of police brutality and pervasive corruption.
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