Hostage-taking in a prison in Russia ends with 8 dead

Russian security forces eliminated four prisoners who identified themselves as members of ISIS and had taken hostages, killing four people in a prison in the southwest of the country. According to a statement from the Russian prison service, this hostage situation occurred on Friday, September 2, in a prison in the Volgograd region, where four prison officers were killed by the attackers' knife strikes. Meanwhile, a video has surfaced showing the four hostage-takers standing with knives next to the bodies of the prison officers, claiming to be members of ISIS. A regional Telegram channel identified these four prisoners as two citizens of Uzbekistan and two citizens of Tajikistan, although this report has not been confirmed by Russian authorities. In other videos released from the incident, the hostage-takers are seen standing next to a flag reading 'Allahu Akbar,' and in one video, one of the hostage-takers states that the prison officers 'violated the rights of Muslims.' According to the Russian National Guard, snipers were able to end the hostage situation by killing these four prisoners. The report states that among those who were attacked by the hostage-takers, three died in the prison, and the fourth died in the hospital. According to Reuters, the operation to storm the prison to free the hostages was carried out after Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, requested a report from the Minister of Internal Affairs, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the head of the National Guard regarding the incident during a weekly Security Council meeting. This recent event, occurring just two months after a prison riot in June, raises significant security questions. Details of Friday's incident have not been released, and it remains unclear how these four prisoners managed to obtain knives and produce videos of their actions to share on social media. According to Radio Free Europe, Friday's incident is likely to exacerbate the xenophobia that has intensified in recent months following the Crocus City Hall attack. In April of this year, during the attack on Crocus City Hall in the Moscow suburbs, which was claimed by ISIS Khorasan, 145 people were killed. So far, ten Tajik citizens have been arrested in connection with that attack. Russia, whose military and security agencies are heavily engaged in the war against Ukraine, has also witnessed attacks by Islamist militants since then. About two months ago, a hostage situation occurred in a prison in Rostov-on-Don, which ended with the killing of five hostage-takers, whom Russian authorities identified as ISIS members. A similar incident occurred shortly before that in a prison in the Rostov region, where Russian authorities reported the killing of six hostage-takers.