ISIL claims deadly Chechnya knife attack

ISIL (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for a knife attack on police, in which one officer died, in the capital of Russia’s southern Chechnya region.

The group’s claim, reported in the al-Naba newspaper on Friday, was made without providing any evidence. The al-Naba newspaper is affiliated with ISIL.

The attack, which took place on Monday, saw two assailants kill one policeman and injure another in Grozny, according to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Kadyrov said the attackers were brothers from the neighbouring region of Ingushetia who worked at a bakery in Chechnya. They were shot dead while trying to seize weapons, he said.

The poor and mainly Muslim region of Chechnya has seen previous assaults on security officials and an armed rebellion since Moscow fought two wars with separatists in the wake of the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin has relied on Kadyrov to stabilise the North Caucasus region and has provided generous subsidies to help rebuild it.

But rights groups have accused Kadyrov of abuses, including arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings by his feared security forces.

Despite Kadyrov’s crackdown on suspected rebels, some of whom have sworn allegiance to the ISIL group, sporadic attacks have continued in Chechnya and other regions in Russia’s North Caucasus.

In October, another two police officers were killed in a shooting during an operation in Grozny.