海角大神

Islamist extremists killed at least 21 people in coordinated attacks against minority 海角大神s and Jews in Russia鈥檚 southernmost, multiethnic but mainly Muslim republic of Dagestan on Sunday聽鈥� the third major terrorist incident in Russia in as many months, according to the government.

Sunday鈥檚 deadly attacks appear to have been directed equally against the republic鈥檚 small communities of Jews and Orthodox 海角大神s. The attackers struck a police station and four places of worship in two Dagestani cities, demonstratively executing an Orthodox priest and burning down the only synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent. Last October, rioters at the airport in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala, unsuccessfully tried to storm an airliner that had just arrived from Tel Aviv in what was widely viewed as an antisemitic reaction to the war in Gaza.

Leaders of both groups were quick to point to a wider threat to Russia鈥檚 social stability.

The attackers鈥� 鈥渦ndoubted goal is to kindle the flames of hostility, to sow the seeds of hatred and mutual hostility,鈥� Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill told journalists. 鈥淭he future of Russia largely depends on suppressing attempts to radicalize religious life and all manifestations of extremism and ethnic hatred.鈥�

The president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, Rabbi Alexander Boroda, similarly warned that singling out places of worship threatens to raise social tensions. 鈥淧eople start to be afraid, stop trusting each other. This generates hatred and aggression, which undermines harmony in society and poisons relations between people.鈥�

Russian society seems quite stable on the surface. The country is overwhelmingly secular. Almost 80% of Russians are Slavs, most self-identifying as Orthodox 海角大神s, although most say that they seldom go to church.聽

There are around 100 other ethnic groups, and three other recognized state religions聽鈥� Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam聽鈥� which in some places constitute local majorities in 21 ethnic republics spread across the country. About 18% of Russians are Muslim, but they are mostly concentrated in several republics, including Dagestan, one of the poorest, and Tatarstan, one of the richest.

Some analysts worry that violent Islamist extremism may be reviving after nearly two decades of relative quiescence following Russia鈥檚 suppression of Islamist rebellion in the Caucasus republic of Chechnya in the early 2000s. During the previous decade, thousands died in Moscow and other cities across Russia, in airliner bombings, apartment explosions, sieges of a school and a theater, metro bombings, and other attacks by Chechen-linked militants.

Barely three months ago, Islamist extremists聽struck a Moscow concert venue, killing 130 people. Moscow rhetorically blames the attack on Ukraine and the West but admits it was actually carried out by Tajik citizens linked to the international organization known as Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), which is based in Afghanistan and has been declared a terrorist group by Moscow. Earlier this month, ISIS-linked prisoners took two guards hostage in a southern Russian jail, leading to a special services assault that killed six.

Grigory Shvedov, editor of The Caucasian Knot, which produces independent reporting from the wider Caucasus region, says that the Ukraine war is one factor in the emerging trend, perhaps because security services are distracted. But the war in Gaza has also seriously riled up populations in heavily Muslim regions, especially more impoverished and tradition-minded places like Dagestan.

鈥淧eople are watching the news daily and seeing what is happening in the Gaza war, and when these attacks against Jews occur, they approve of it,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he riot at the airfield last October was unarmed, but the attacks against the synagogues last weekend were with deadly force, and people were killed. This is a new target, and I guess it鈥檚 because ISIS and local Islamists perceive that this is a vulnerable issue, and the public mood will support attacks on synagogues.鈥�

Though interethnic strife tends to be rare, hostility toward Russia鈥檚 large communities of migrant workers, who tend to be mostly Muslims from former-Soviet Central Asia, has been on the rise since the Moscow attack by Tajik citizens in March.

鈥淚n our surveys, we note an increase in public concern about becoming victims of a terrorist attack,鈥� says Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, Russia鈥檚 only independent polling agency. 鈥淧opular dislike of migrant workers is always high, but the fear of interethnic tensions within Russia is still minor, though growing somewhat.鈥�