(Reuters) - The Kremlin-backed head of Dagestan on Tuesday ordered background checks to be carried out on the Russian republic's political elite to make sure nobody had links to radical Islam after a weekend attack in which 21 people were killed.
Sergei Melikov, the governor of the majority-Muslim southern region where gunmen attacked churches and synagogues on Sunday evening, said he was also opposed to local women wearing a niqab face veil after reports that one of the gunmen had planned to escape in a niqab disguised as a woman.
