The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the second armed attack on law enforcement in a week in Russia’s republic of Chechnya, the SITE Intelligence Group monitoring website reported Monday.
IS has claimed a series of attacks over the past year in Chechnya, a predominately Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus, including a June 23 stabbing and wounding of two security officials. An estimated 3,400 Russians went to Syria and Iraq to fight for IS and around 400 have returned home.
An assailant stabbed and threw a grenade at a police officer at a Chechen checkpoint on Monday, the North Caucasus police department said. The attacker was killed by return fire and the wounded officer died on his way to the hospital.
Chechnya’s notorious leader Ramzan Kadyrov condemned the spate of stabbings as a novelty introduced to Russia by Western “foes.”
“There have never been knife attacks on law enforcement officials in Russia,” he wrote on social media Monday. “It’s an innovation of Western countries exported to Russia.”
“Russia’s foes are trying to destabilize the situation, to divert efforts and attention from constructive work and to keep us in constant tension,” Kadyrov said.
Islamic State is a terrorist organization banned in Russia.
