Two local imams were injured early on Saturday in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus republic of Dagestan as an unidentified gunman sprayed their car with a volley of automatic gunfire.
“Both men were wounded and taken to a hospital for treatment,” local police said.
A team of investigators is working on the crime scene, the official said.
This is the latest in this year’s series of attacks on imams in Dagestan.
On July 10, a local mosque imam was killed in Dagestan’s village of Karamakhi.
On June 14, another religious leader was found with gunshot wounds near the mosque in the village of Mikheyevka. The murder came several days after a Muslim theology professor Maksud Sadikov and his nephew were shot by unknown assailants.
In April, two unidentified assailants fired from submachine guns into a window of a house in the
Dagestan’s village of Yasnaya Polyana, killing mosque imam Magomed Saipulayev.
Religious leaders are frequently the victims of militant violence in Russia’s North Caucasus. Russian Islamologist Roman Silantev said in December last year that around 50 moderate muftis have been killed for opposing Wahhabism.