The gunman involved in the deadly shooting in Russia has been identified as one of the members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – reports say.
The terror group has claimed that the gunman who shot dead two people in a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) office was an ISIS operative.
FSB said that the gunman opened fire just outside a security checkpoint in a reception room of the office branch on Friday (21 April), which left an intelligence official and a visitor dead.
A spokesperson for FSB, who is seen as the successor to the infamous Soviet KGB, confirmed the news, and they said: “An unknown person entered the reception of the FSB’s Khabarovsk regional branch and started shooting at people inside.”
According to the International Business Times, the assailant, who has not been named by Russian authorities, also injured another visitor after he burst into the agency headquarters in Khabarovsk near the Chinese border in the far east of the Russia.
The assailant, who was identified as an 18-year-old resident of Khabarovsk Region, was killed as the security guards returned fire. The visitors who were killed and injured were from former Soviet states outside Russia, according to the security service.
The Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service, confirmed that ISIS is claiming that the attacker is one of their deranged fighters through their Amaq news agency.
In contrary to this information, one Russian news agency reported that the attacker, who was not carrying explosives, had links to a neo-Nazi group. And the FSB said the gunman belonged to an unnamed nationalist group. He had killed an instructor at a local shooting club and stole a hunting rifle and the two pistols to carry out the attack.
A police investigation has been launched and evidence is being gathered at the crime scene.
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