Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters stormed an airport in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Dagestan region on Sunday, where a plane from Tel Aviv had just arrived, forcing security forces to close the airport and remove the demonstrators.
Twenty people were injured before forces contained the protest at Makhachkala airport, local authorities said. The passengers on the plane were safe, security forces told Reuters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called a meeting of top security and law enforcement officials after the incident. The Kremlin blamed the unrest on “outside interference”, and Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the meeting will discuss “attempts by the West to use the events in West Asia to divide the (Russian) society”.
“It is well known and obvious that yesterday’s event around the Makhachkala airport is largely the result of outside interference, including information influence from outside,” Peskov said at his daily news conference.
The unrest followed several other anti-Israel incidents in the North Caucasus sparked by Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza. The Dagestani government said early on Monday that it was strengthening security measures across the republic, which is home to about 3 million.
The unrest in the region, where Russian security forces once fought an Islamist insurgency, could pose another challenge for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is waging a war in Ukraine and who has faced an attempted mutiny this year.
Videos from Makhachkala airport obtained by Reuters showed the protesters, mostly young men, waving Palestinian flags, breaking down glass doors and running through the airport shouting “Allah-u-Akbar” or “God is Greatest”. Another group were seen trying to topple over a patrol truck.
The Russian Aviation Authority closed the airport until it completed security checks. There were no immediate reports of arrests, but Russia’s federal investigations agency ordered a criminal probe into the incident.
Sergei Melikov, the head of Dagestan, said the incident was a gross violation of the law, even as Dagestanis “empathise with the suffering of victims of the actions of unrighteous people and politicians, and pray for peace in Palestine”. “There is no courage in waiting as a mob for unarmed people who have not done anything forbidden,” Melikov said on the Telegram messaging app.
