The death toll from a series of brazen attacks on churches and synagogues in Russia's mainly Muslim region of Dagestan rose to 20 on Monday after gunmen went on the rampage in coordinated attacks in two of the republic's most important cities.
Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into an Orthodox church and a synagogue in the ancient city of Derbent on Sunday evening, setting fire to an icon at the church and killing a 66-year-old Orthodox priest, Nikolai Kotelnikov.
In the city of Makhachkala, about 125 kilometers north on the Caspian Sea shore, attackers shot at a traffic police post and attacked a church.