Gunmen in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan have killed 6 law enforcement officers in a sequence of assaults, security officials say.

A synagogue, two church buildings and a law enforcement checkpoint had been specific in the towns of Derbent and Makhachkala. Twelve other officers ended up wounded.

A Russian Orthodox priest has also been killed and 4 attackers shot dead, condition media report.

The assailants have not been identified, but Dagestan has in the previous been the scene of Islamist attacks.

Footage posted on social media demonstrates people today putting on darkish apparel capturing at police autos, just before a convoy of unexpected emergency support cars get there at the scene in Makhachkala, Dagestan’s major town.

In Derbent – dwelling to an ancient Jewish local community – gunmen attacked a synagogue and a church. Equally structures were being established ablaze, area officers say.

An unofficial channel on the Telegram messaging application, Mash, said gunmen ended up barricaded in a creating in Derbent.

Russia’s Investigative Committee launched an investigation over “acts of terror”, AFP news company reported.

Later on on Sunday, police detained Magomed Omarov, a prominent regional politician who head of the Sergokalinsky district, adhering to stories that two of his sons ended up among the attackers.

Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim republic. It is also just one of the poorest pieces of Russia.

Much less than a 7 days in the past the deputy head of the FSB, Russia’s domestic stability assistance, chaired a meeting in Makhachkala to focus on “anti-terrorism steps”. The intention was to enhance stability of “transport, motels and other mass public locations”.

In April the FSB arrested 4 men and women in Dagestan suspected of involvement in the assault on Moscow’s Crocus City Corridor location the preceding month.

More than 140 people ended up killed in that assault, which was claimed by the Islamic State group.

Concerning 2007 and 2017, a jihadist organisation identified as the Caucasus Emirate, and afterwards the Islamic Emirate of the Caucasus, staged assaults in Dagestan and the neighbouring Russian republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.