Gunmen kill 11, wound 15 in attack on Russian military recruits
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Russia’s far east and south involving assailants wielding Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades and handguns as well as a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives and a car-bomb attack which killed eight people at a crowded shopping mall.
Seven men and four women were killed when the assailants, some of whom were dressed in Islamic garb, attacked a Moscow recruiting station and the Red October restaurant in Volgograd in central Russia’s Volgograd region, the local prosecutor’s office said. Two suspects were detained.
The attackers also sprayed fire in a parking lot next to the Red October restaurant, where 15 people were injured.
The deaths came the morning after nine people were killed and 11 wounded during an attack on a recruiting station in the Kursk region.
In Volgograd, the attacker drove into a police patrol car, and the car had explosives strapped to it, the prosecutor said, adding that the car had been destroyed.
In addition to the seven killings in Volgograd and several attacks in the Kursk region, four men died in Volgograd on Wednesday as a result of a shootout with police, the prosecutor’s office said.
“All four of those killed were terrorists. Three of them had previously fought in Syria,” Anton Gerashchenko told reporters.
The manhunt for the attackers is continuing.
“We are going to have to work very hard in these villages, our friends are ready to help us find the people responsible for these terrible acts. You can count on all of us,” said Dmitry Kuzmin, mayor of Volgograd.
“We have the blood of my children on our hands,” said Volgograd’s governor, Vladimir Yakovlev.
The Volgograd attack followed three armed robberies in the city.
In the Volgograd attack, which took place a month after a similar attack in Krasnodar in the south, four gunmen wearing Russian army uniforms and driving a stolen car entered a recruiting office in the town center, officials said.
“Forget everything, it is finished,” Volgograd police chief Vyacheslav Popov was quoted by RIA Novosti in comments he made on Tuesday.
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