The security forces of a Russian prison broke into a detention center to free hostages, officials of the place, captured by prisoners who would be linked to the Islamic State
Las Security forces from a Russian prison broke into a detention center in the south of the country this Sunday, killing six inmates accused of links to Islamist terrorist cells that two staff members had been taken hostageas reported by the state-funded news channel RT.
Journalists who were at the scene reported that shots were heardwhile on social networks the arrival of several ambulances to the prison could be seen.
The officials were rescued and the captors “liquidated”
Hostages at the Rostov-on-Don pre-trial detention center were unharmedas reported by the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in an official statement in which it was also said that the kidnappers had been “liquidated”.
Several local media outlets, including RT, reported that some of the prisoners had died.
The inmates would be linked to the Islamic State group
Previously, the state news agency Tass, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, had claimed that six kidnappers were in the central courtyard of Detention Center No. 1 of the Rostov region, armed with a knife, a rubber baton and an incendiary ax.
Among those detained are men accused of having links to the Islamic State groupaccording to the prison service statement.
Images posted on social media showed at least two of the kidnappers wearing a headband resembling the Islamic State flag. Other images showed prisoners wielding knives.
Security questioned
The hostage taking will raise questions about why security was not sufficiently reinforced. security in the detention centerespecially considering that the prisoners, as members of the Islamic State, would have been considered a security risk.
RT reported that three of the kidnappers They had already been convicted on terrorism chargesincluding the dissemination of extremist information and the conspiracy to blow up a Russian court.
The Islamic State has carried out several attacks on Russian soil in recent years. A subsidiary of its claimed responsibility for the most recent attack, in March, when armed men they opened fire against a crowd in a suburban Moscow concert hall, killing 145 people.
