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“The number of wounded in the shooting at the mosque in the town of Khasavyurt has risen to eight,” the interior ministry said after two unidentified gunmen opened fire on worshipers in the Shiite mosque on Saturday evening as they celebrated the end of Ramadan.
Three people suffered gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, while others were shot in the arms and legs, the ministry said in a statement.
Citing the local police, RIA Novosti news agency said more people were injured in an explosion in the mosque after the gun attack in the town, which is in the west of the largely Muslim region.
“An explosion went off,” the police told the agency. “Altogether there were two explosive devices. One went off, the other is being defused.”
The police confirmed to the news agency Interfax that explosives experts were working in the mosque to defuse an explosive device, but they denied that anyone was wounded in a blast.
“The explosive experts are continuing their work,” a police spokesman told Interfax. “So far the deactivation is not completed. We have no information on an explosion or people wounded during the deactivation work.”
The gunmen brought a gas cylinder wired to explosives into the mosque before opening fire with an automatic rifle and a pistol, the Web site Life News reported late Saturday, citing a source in the regional interior ministry.
Around 70 worshipers were in the mosque at the time of the attack, listening to a sermon, Life News reported, adding that the attackers escaped by car.
On Sunday, Muslims hold celebrations for Id al-Fitr, known as Uraz-Bairam in Russian, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
Shootings and bombings take place almost daily in Dagestan. Officials blame the violence on local criminals and Islamists with links to Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars over the past 20 years.
http://www.nytimes.c...n-dagestan.html
