ISIS claims deadly attack on FSB office in Russia

WASHINGTON DC, USA – The Islamic State jihadist group (IS, formerly known as ISIS or the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack Friday, April 21, on an office of Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, in the country’s far east, a US-based monitoring group said.

Amaq News Agency, an ISIS propaganda arm, made the claim in a brief report in Arabic distributed on the social media application Telegram that cited a “security source.”

According to the text translated into English by the SITE monitoring group, the source said an ISIS “fighter” attacked an FSB office in Khabarovsk, killing 3 people and wounding others.

Russian officials say two people were killed in the incident – an FSB employee and a civilian. One other person was reported wounded.

The assailant was shot dead, the FSB said, adding: “There is information about his belonging to a neo-Nazi group.”

The Amaq report came one day after the Islamic State group claimed an attack in Paris that left a policeman dead and two other officers wounded.

Deadly attacks on Russian law enforcement officials are rare outside the country’s volatile North Caucasus region.

The country has seen significant support for far-right groups that have sparked brutal confrontations with immigrants from the former Soviet region.

Russia has been on heightened alert since an alleged suicide bomb attack on the metro in the second city of Saint Petersburg on April 3 left 15 people dead. (READ: Russia says it ‘practically established’ who ordered metro bombing – agencies) – Rappler.com