members of the Islamic State group “neutralized” after taking two prison guards hostage

The prison administration specifies that the agents were not injured during the special operation.

Several members of the Islamic State group were “neutralized” in a Russian prison, according to the authorities, after taking two prison officers hostage, Sunday June 16. “The employees who were taken hostage were released and were not injured”, specified the prison services, in a press release published after a special operation. The prison administration had announced, a few hours earlier, that defendants were holding guards in detention center number 1 in the Rostov region, located at the gateway to the Russian Caucasus.

Members of the jihadist organization due to appear in court on charges of “terrorism” were among the hostage-takers, according to the Tass agency, citing a source within the police. They were holed up in the courtyard of the detention center, armed with a pocketknife, a baton and an axe, according to the same source. The attackers, who numbered six according to the Interfax agency, had asked to be provided with a car and to be allowed to leave the detention center in exchange for the release of the hostages.

This hostage taking came almost three months after the attack claimed by the Islamic State group against the Crocus City Hall, a concert hall near Moscow, where armed men killed at least 144 people, the worst attack in almost twenty years. More than 20 people were subsequently arrested, including the four alleged attackers, all from Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia neighboring Afghanistan.

Russia has been repeatedly targeted by attacks claimed by the jihadist organization, although ISIS’s influence remains limited in the country. According to Russian media, the attackers at the Rostov detention center could be men arrested in 2022 and accused of wanting to carry out an attack against the Supreme Court of Karachay-Cherkessia, a Russian republic in the Caucasus with a Muslim majority.

Nearly 4,500 Russians have fought alongside the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, according to official figures.