ISIS has claimed responsibility for a gun rampage at an Orthodox church in Russia that left five women dead.
Khalil Khalilov screamed ‘Allahu akbar’ as he opened fire with a hunting rifle before he was shot dead by police in Kizlyar, a town in the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan.
Chilling footage shows the bearded 22-year-old attacker walking to the church on Sunday and a terrified woman fleeing the scene.
ISIS claimed one of its ‘soldiers of Islam’, who they referred to as Khalil Daghestan, carried out the attack using his gun to ‘kill five of them and wound four others’.
Pictures show the body of Khalilov, who was dressed in military clothes and was carrying a hunting knife with Arabic inscriptions on the black sheath. Next to his corpse lay two of his victims, covered in a white shroud.
Chilling footage shows Khalil Khalilov walking to an Orthodox church in Kizlyar, southern Russia, before he shot five women dead on Sunday. Video also shows a terrified woman fleeing from the scene
Pictures show the body of Khalilov, who was dressed in military clothes and was carrying a hunting knife with inscriptions on the black sheath
Seen as a ‘sleeper jihadist’, Khalilov was not listed as a radical or rebel. But a video shows him making an oath of allegiance to ISIS speaking in Arabic (pictured)
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the gun rampage at the Orthodox church (pictured today) that left five women dead in Russia
Among those killed was a distinguished cardiologist Lyudmila Scherbakova, who was gunned down with her sister Vera Morgunova, a local community leader.
Both died at the scene, along with church-goers Nadezhda Terliyan and Irina Melkomova.
The fifth woman killed in the terrorist outrage was Vera Blinnikova, 60, who died during surgery after being shot in the chest.
The massacre was at an Orthodox Church in Kizlyar, a town in the restive mainly Muslim region of Dagestan in southern Russia.
Two more victims were gravely wounded in the attack, Nadezhda Kushnaryova, 69 and Natalia Pletukhina, 63.
Khalilov had no criminal record, and his name was not known to police and secret services.
Pictures emerged in local media showing Khalil Khalilov’s body. He was carrying a black knife sheath with ISIS inscriptions
Today, flowers were left outside the church in the city of Kizlyar a day after local resident Khalil Khalilov opened fire at worshippers
Among those killed was a distinguished cardiologist Lyudmila Scherbakova (right), who was gunned down with her sister Vera Morgunova (left), a local community leader
The fifth woman killed in the terrorist outrage was Vera Blinnikova, 60, who died during surgery after being shot in the chest
Seen as a ‘sleeper jihadist’, he was not listed as a radical or rebel. But a video shows him making an oath of allegiance to ISIS speaking in Arabic.
‘We had finished the mass and were beginning to leave the church. A bearded man ran towards the church shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘God is greatest’) and killed four people,’ said Orthodox priest Father Pavel.
‘He was carrying a rifle and a knife,’ he added. It is believed he only used the gun in the attacks.
Hieromonch – or monk priest – Ioann Anisimov said: ‘These were all good people.
‘Two of the killed women were sisters, one a doctor well known to all people in Kizlyar, the other a community leader.
‘She was very active in the church. One other woman was begging for money on the doorstep.
Two more victims were gravely wounded in the attack, Nadezhda Kushnaryova, 69 and Natalia Pletukhina (pictured), 63
Doctors examine a wounded man in hospital after the shooting in Kizlyar Dagestan, Russia
The massacre was at an Orthodox Church in Kizlyar, a town in the restive mainly Muslim region of Dagestan in southern Russia
‘Another was a teacher all her life, and when she retired she became an active Christian, organising trips to holy places. I feel it just can’t be happening to us here.
‘Our churches are not guarded at all, nobody expected anything like this despite the fact that there were acts of terror both in Kizlyar and Makhachkala.
‘But attempts on life of clergymen or church-goers – it just never happened.’
Vera Blinnikova’s last posting on her social network was: ‘Who are we if we don’t forgive each other, if God forgives us all our sins?’
Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill said: ‘They were coming out of the church after a Holy Service.
‘The killing innocent people on the doorstep of the church is a horrible and cynical crime which cannot be justified.
‘Only those whose hearts are full of Devil’s anger and evil could have done it, those who do not possess the spirit of peace and love.’
Hieromonch – or monk priest – Ioann Anisimov said that all of the victims were ‘good people’
His aide Father Alexander Volkov said the shooting on the eve of Orthodox lent was ‘a provocation aimed at starting a counteraction between Orthodox and Muslim people who have lived in peace for centuries in the Caucasus’.
Dagestan, bordering Chechnya, is one of the poorest and most unstable regions of Russia.
Islamist rebels from the region, which lies immediately east of Chechnya, are known to have travelled to Syria to join ISIS.
In 2015, IS declared it had established a ‘franchise’ in the North Caucasus.
It has claimed a number of attacks on police in Dagestan in the last couple of years that have involved guns and explosives, as local security forces battle a simmering Islamist insurgency.
Sunday’s shooting comes exactly one month before the March 18 presidential election that Vladimir Putin is almost guaranteed to win.