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President Vladimir Putin has received a rockstar welcome in Russia’s Dagestan region that some are interpreting as the 70-year-old leader’s attempt to boost his popularity days after quelling an armed insurrection.

Airport in Russia’s Muslim southern region closed after hundreds storm tarmac and climb on to planes. A mob in Russia’s mostly Muslim region of Dagestan has stormed the airport in Makhachkala in search of Jewish passengers arriving from Israel. In the past day, local people have besieged a hotel in search of Jewish guests and stormed the airport after reports emerged that a flight from Tel Aviv was arriving in the city. While no one appears to have been seriously injured or killed in the riots, passengers have been forced to take refuge in planes or hide in the airport...

A mob of anti-Israeli protesters stormed into an airport in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Sunday night following calls on social media to block a flight from Tel Aviv from landing at the regional capital's airport. Video shared on social media showed hundreds of people gathered outside Makhachkala International Airport on Sunday evening, with demonstrators brandishing Palestinian flags and shouting anti-Israel chants.

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) -- The father of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing claims that his son who is still on the loose is a smart and accomplished young man. Anzor Tsarnaev spoke with The Associated Press by telephone from the Russian city of Makhachkala on Friday after police said one of his sons, 26-year-old Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout and the other, Dzhokhar, was being intensely pursued. "My son is a true angel," the elder Tsarnaev said. "Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to...

The New York Times's David Herszenhorn on Friday wrote up a bizarre new conference held by the parents of the Boston Marathon bombers in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, where they have lived for the past year: "Parents Deny Son's Guilt And Accuse U.S. of Plot." It's puzzling why Herszenhorn chose such a credulous tone to the conspiratorial rants of the bombers' mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva (The Washington Post made do with a brief mention at the very end of a related story on Friday). The parents of the two brothers accused in the bomb attack that killed three people and...

One of those present at the training ground in Belgorod during the execution by some mobilized others told the Astra Telegram channel that the cause of the conflict could be religious - shortly before the incident, Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Lapin said that Allah is a coward, since he does not allow Muslims to fight for a country where you took an oath. The authors of the material emphasize that at the time of publication they were unable to independently confirm the identity of either the narrator himself or the identity of other persons appearing in the story. “It all started...

LONDON — Lines at neighboring borders and protests are just some of the scenes in Russia following President Vladimir Putin’s call for partial military mobilization. Last week, Putin ordered up to 300,000 Russians to serve in the invasion of Ukraine that began in February. Since then, thousands of citizens have fled the country to bordering nations, including Georgia and Mongolia. A satellite image of the Russia-Georgia border taken on Tuesday shows a multitude of cars and people waiting at the crossing. According to Russian state news outlet Tass, more than 5,000 cars had created the traffic jam, which was up...

Russian men who are fleeing the country to avoid being drafted into Moscow’s war against Ukraine should seek asylum in the US, the White House said Tuesday. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her regular briefing that the response inside Russia to the so-called “partial mobilization” ordered last week by the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, shows “this war that was started by the Kremlin is unpopular.” “Regardless of their nationality, [people] may apply for asylum in the United States and have their claims adjudicated on a case by case basis,” Jean-Pierre added. “We welcome any folks who are seeking...

The Russian economy contracted steeply in the second quarter as the economic consequences of its war in Ukraine took hold. The economy shrank 4 percent from April through June compared with a year ago, the Russian statistics agency said on Friday. It is the first quarterly gross domestic product report to fully capture the change in the economy since the invasion of Ukraine in February, when Western sanctions shut Russia off from much of the global financial system, and many countries severed trading relationships with Moscow. It was also a sharp reversal from the first quarter, when the economy rose...

Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered the remains of an ancient palace that may have belonged to Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan.The site in eastern Turkey's Van province, in the Caldiran district, is currently being excavated.Hulagu Khan, a Mongol warlord who lived from about 1217 to 1265, achieved military renown for leading several expeditions, including the sack of Baghdad in 1258.After the Mongol Empire splintered in 1259, Hulagu Khan became the ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanid State in the Middle East, which at its height included territory in what is now Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Afghanistan,...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Russia’s Multiple Warnings About Tamerlan TsarnaevPosted By Matthew Vadum On April 25, 2013 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 6 Comments Russian authorities warned the Obama administration repeatedly — not merely once — that Boston Marathon bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev could be an Islamic terrorist, but those admonitions went unheeded in Washington, D.C.It’s a depressingly familiar tale of intelligence failures, official lies, politically correct posturing, and bureaucratic bungles coming from an administration that has little interest in protecting Americans from the Islamic terrorist threat, a danger President Obama refuses even to acknowledge.Time magazine...

U.S. Links Charity to Chechen RebelsBy Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer The head of a U.S.-based Islamic charity who is suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden is in jail facing a grand jury investigation after the FBI showed he had lied about his support for Chechen rebels. Federal officials accused Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, and his Benevolence International Foundation of perjury last month for claiming they did not provide support to "people or organizations known to engage in violence, terrorist activities or military operations of any nature." Arnaout, 39, was arrested April 30. He had been under...

Despite or, in some cases, because of the support it receives from the government and the new “anti-extremism” laws deployed against others, the Russian Orthodox Church is increasingly isolated from Russians in the North Caucasus and is losing many of them to Protestant groups who are also attracting some Muslims as well. Ruslan Gereyev, the director of the Center for Islamic Research on the North Caucasus, says that the major reason for Orthodoxy’s failure and Protestantism’s success is that “unlike Protestant and Muslim preachers, representatives of the Russian Orthodox church do not reach out to the population. Because they are...

A gunman has killed four women and injured three others, including police officers, at a folk festival in the Russian republic of Dagestan, according to local sources. A man armed with a hunting rifle gunned down churchgoers in the city of Kizlyar, according to the Associated Press, and reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” as he opened fire. Kizlyar’s mayor Alexander Shuvalov told Russian media the gunman opened fire as people were leaving a Sunday evening service at a local Orthodox church. “Four people were killed. The shooter was shot dead. Two police officers and a woman were wounded,” he said.

A man carrying a knife and a hunting rifle opened fire on worshippers on Sunday at an Orthodox church in Kizlyar, in the Dagestan region of Russia, killing at least five people and wounding several others, according to a Russian state news agency. The gunman shouted, “Allahu akbar” and began firing, a priest told local news media. Churchgoers said they had prevented more casualties by closing the door to the church and stopping the attacker from getting inside. The man was later shot and killed by security forces on duty at the time, reports said. The assailant was identified only...

Five women were shot dead in an apparent Islamist attack on an Orthodox church in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday. According to local press reports, an unidentified gunman fired at worshippers in the small town of Kizlyar in the mainly Muslim region. At least five other people, including two Russian police officers, were wounded in the attack, which took place after a service to mark the start of Russian Orthodox Lent ---snip--- The attacker was “eliminated” by police fire, the regional internal affairs ministry added.

Five people were killed and several others were injured after a gunman opened fire with a hunting rifle on people leaving a church service in Russia's Dagestan region on Sunday, Russian media outlets reproted.

Many observers have warned that Putin’s military campaign in Syria may backfire at home. Russia’s 144 million people include about 20 million Muslims; the overwhelming majority are Sunnis. Some analysts believe that these Russian Sunnis will recoil from Russia’s support for Assad’s Alawite-dominated regime and its attacks on Sunni rebels, and from Russia’s effort to lead a coalition of Shiite powers, Iran, Iraq and Syria. If pundits’ predictions were true, Muslims would be more likely to choose the anti-war response and less likely to support Putin’s intervention. But that’s not exactly what we found. ...There wasn’t a consensus among any...

Aina Gamzatova, a 46-year-old woman from Dagestan, has made it official. She wants to run against Russian President Vladimir Putin in the March 2018 election. Some see her campaign - irrespective of its results - as a way to boost the image of Muslim women in Russia and to attract attention to the needs of impoverished, overpopulated and multi-ethnic Dagestan. Her husband, Akhmad Abdulaev, is the Mufti of Dagestan, Russia's troubled province where a confrontation between fighters, clans and federal forces has killed thousands. She belongs to a Sufi order that has tens of thousands of followers and whose leader,...

How Putin is Winning and Losing Syria No one is in Syria because of ISIS. October 8, 2015 Daniel Greenfield    Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. The Russian line is that they’re in Syria to fight ISIS. But the Russians, like the Turks, Iranians and Europeans, don’t care about ISIS. By declaring itself a Caliphate, ISIS made itself non-aligned. The fighting in Syria isn’t about ISIS. It predated the rise of ISIS as a major player. It’s about Syria. ISIS has become a convenient excuse for...