New Delhi, June 26 : Just three months after the deadly Crocus City Hall attack on the outskirts of Moscow, Russia was on Sunday struck by another terror outrage - this time on its southernmost territory, bringing diverse yet restive Dagestan back into the global spotlight, and resurrecting the menace of Islamist terrorism in the volatile North Caucasus region.

While the Islamic State-Khorasan Province had claimed responsibility for carrying out the March 22 attack -- though Russia maintains the conspiracy was much deeper, no one has rushed to take credit for the Sunday attacks so far. However, the choice of targets -- churches, synagogues, and law enforcement, and the brutal murder of an elderly and sick Orthodox priest by slitting his throat -- bear clear hallmarks of Islamist terror perpetrators.  Given the scale of the attacks, simultaneously carried out in the regional capital Makachkala and the port city of Derbent, over 100 km south, they appear well-planned unlike IS-style "lone wolf" attacks that have long plagued western Europe, and the choice of the target was telling.  Multi-ethnic Dagestan, where the Avars (over 30 per cent) form the plurality, but the populace includes Dargins, Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarans, Azerbaijanis, Russians, Chechens and other ethnic people, is Muslim-majority but also has Orthodox Christians, an age-old Jewish community, atheists, and almost 10 per cent terming themselves as "spiritual but not religious" (as per a 2012 survey). 

Though the birthplace of the legendary Imam Shamyl, who led the decades-long armed resistance by Chechen and Dagestani tribes to the expanding Russian empire in the Caucasus in the mid-19th century, Dagestan, like Ingushetia under war hero Ruslan Aushev, remained loyal to Russia post the end of the Soviet Union, unlike Chechnya, under former Soviet Air Force officer Dzokhar Dudayev.