Kizlyar church shooting
On 18 February 2018, a 22-year-old man local to the Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan carrying a knife and a double-barreled shotgun opened fire on a crowd at an Orthodox church in Kizlyar, killing five women and injuring several other people, including two police and three others. He was shot and killed by police on duty nearby. The attack occurred as churchgoers celebrated the Sunday of Forgiveness, the last day of Cheesefare week, a Christian holiday marking the last day before Lent according to the eastern Orthodox calendar. The Islamic State of Iraq  and the Levant (ISIL) named the man Khalil al-Dagestani, one of its soldiers. Police named him Khalil Khalilov. Pro-ISIL social media later shared a video of a masked man with a shotgun and knife, said to be the killer, pledging his allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.