ISIL claims responsibility for Russian church shooting in which five women died

Attack in Dagestan condemned as 'a monstrous crime'

Doctors examine a wounded man in the hospital after a shooting near a church in Kizlyar Dagestan. According to reports, five people were killed. Stringer / EPA

ISIL has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on an Orthodox church congregation in the North Caucasus region of Dagestan that left five women dead.

An unidentified gunman fired at worshippers leaving the church in the town of Kizlyar in the mainly Muslim region, local press reports said.

The regional internal affairs ministry said in a statement that the assailant used a hunting rifle, and that four women were killed on the spot, while the attacker was "eliminated".

A fifth woman died of her injuries in hospital, health ministry spokeswoman Zalina Mourtazalieva told TASS news agency.

Two Russian police officers were injured in the attack.

According to a local official the assailant was a local man in his early twenties, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Russian RBK daily quoted an Orthodox priest saying the attacker had  fired on churchgoers following an afternoon service on Sunday.

"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," Father Pavel told RBK.

"He was carrying a rifle and a knife," he said.

_______________

Read more:

Indonesia court indicts Jakarta attack mastermind 

Suspected militant shot dead after stabbing Indonesian policemen in mosque

At least 17 dead as gunman opens fire in Florida school

Texas gunman may have been targeting in-laws 

_______________

"A soldier of Islam, Khalil Daghestani, attacked a church in the town of Kizlyar in Dagestan," ISIL confirmed via the Telegram messaging app.

"He targeted them with his gun, killing five of them and wounding four others," it claimed.

A spokesman for Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill condemned the attack, branding it a "monstrous crime" aimed at "provoking a confrontation between Orthodox Christians and Muslims" in the North Caucasus.

Images published by the local press showed the body of a bearded man dressed in military fatigues who was identified as the assailant.

Next to his corpse lay two of his victims, covered in a white shroud.

Dagestan, bordering Chechnya, is one of the poorest and most unstable regions in Russia.

Rebels from the region, which lies immediately east of Chechnya, are known to have travelled to Syria to join ISIL.

In 2015, ISIL declared it had established a "franchise" in the North Caucasus.

It has claimed responsibility for 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 radical insurgency.

Sunday's shooting came exactly one month before the March 18 presidential election that Vladimir Putin is almost guaranteed to win.