The Islamic State has claimed the deadly attack at a church in Russia’s Dagestan region

A man carrying a knife and a hunting rifle opened fire on worshippers on Sunday at an Orthodox church in Kizlyar, in the Dagestan region of Russia, killing at least five people and wounding several others, according to a Russian state news agency.

The gunman shouted, “Allahu akbar” and began firing, a priest told local news media. Churchgoers said they had prevented more casualties by closing the door to the church and stopping the attacker from getting inside.

The man was later shot and killed by security forces on duty at the time, reports said. The assailant was identified only as a 22-year-old man from the region, the Russian news agency Tass said.

The Islamic State group claimed credit for the attack on the church, at first issuing a bulletin on its Amaq news agency. It was followed by a lengthier official statement in which it described the assailant as a “soldier of the caliphate” and provided a nom de guerre for the attacker, Khalil al-Dagestani.

Not long afterward, pro-IS channels on Telegram, the app, released a video showing a man said to be the assailant sitting before the IS flag, his face covered by a ski mask. A gun and a long knife are seen leaning against the wall behind him, presumably the weapons that would later be used in the attack.

In the video, the man pledges allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of IS, referring to him as “the Emir of the believers,” the honorific that IS members reserve for the man they view as their caliph.

While the authenticity of the video could not be immediately independently confirmed, IS members and supporters were promoting it online.

Source: post-gazette.