…As Kurdish fighters ‘strike deal’ with Syrian army on Afrin***

Five women have been killed in a shooting at a church in Russia’s volatile republic of Dagestan.

Five others, including a police officer and a national guardsman, were injured, Russian officials said. Two are said to be in a critical condition.

A man fired at people leaving an evening service in the city of Kizlyar.

The attacker was shot and killed at the scene. He was later identified as 22-year-old Khalil Khalilov, a resident of Dagestan.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attack but did not immediately provide any evidence.

The gunman used a hunting rifle, opening fire on worshippers leaving a service during celebrations for Maslenitsa – a traditional pre-Lent festival, Russian media report.

Four women were killed at the scene, and another woman died later in a hospital.

Russian news outlet RBK Daily quoted an Orthodox priest as saying the attack took place immediately following the afternoon service.

“We had finished the mass and were beginning to leave the church. A bearded man ran towards the church shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is greatest) and killed four people,” the priest said.

“He was carrying a rifle and a knife,” he added.

IS later said – through its information wing Amaq – that one of its “soldiers” had carried out the attack.

However, it provided no evidence to back up its claims.

IS made the claim in the name of its so-called “Caucasus Province”, the last official branch set up by the group in 2015.

The branch has claimed a number of deadly attacks against security personnel in Dagestan.

Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters in north-western Syria say they have struck a deal with the Syrian government under which it will send troops to help repel a Turkish offensive.

The Syrian government in Damascus has offered no confirmation.

Turkey regards the Kurdish fighters, just across its border in Afrin, as terrorists. It launched a major offensive against them last month.

There is currently no Syrian military presence in the area.

A senior Kurdish official, Badran Jia Kurd, told Reuters that government soldiers could enter the Afrin region within days and that they would deploy to some border positions.

The alleged agreement was also reported by Iraqi Kurdish media group Rudaw, which quoted a Kurdish politician from Syria, and a news agency which backs Syrian Kurdish forces.

If the deal has really been struck, Turkish troops could find themselves confronting not only Kurdish fighters in Afrin, but the Syrian army too, says BBC World Service Middle East editor Alan Johnston.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers withdrew from northern Kurdish areas in 2012.

The Kurds of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – the dominant Kurdish party – then quickly took charge, backed by its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG cleared Islamic State (IS) group fighters from wide swathes of Syria.

Turkey is trying to oust the YPG from Afrin because it sees the group as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for three decades.

The Syrian military and the YPG have largely avoided direct conflict in the Syrian war thus far but have had sporadic clashes.

“We can co-operate with any side that lends us a helping hand in light of the barbaric crimes and the international silence,” Mr Jia Kurd said.

However, he added that the alleged agreement – which he said did not include any political arrangements – could fall through.

“We don’t know to what extent these understandings will last because there are sides that are not satisfied and want to make [it] fail,” he said.

BBC