MOSCOW (AP) — Inmates at a Russian prison took guards as hostages and claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group, leaving at least four people injured, Russian news reports said Friday.
Details of the violence at the prison in Surovkino, 860 kilometers (535 miles) southeast of Moscow, were sparse and did not specify the number of hostage-takers or people seized.
Russian news site Meduza posted a video that it said was from the scene, showing men wielding knives inside and in a prison yard and several men in what appeared to be guard uniforms lying in blood on the ground.
State news agency Tass said four victims were taken to a local hospital and two of them were in serious condition. Unconfirmed reports on Telegram messaging channels said one or two people died.
In the video, the alleged attackers claimed support for IS and for the suspects arrested in the March terrorist attack on a Moscow concert hall that left 145 people dead. An IS affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack, in which gunmen killed patrons waiting for a popular music group to perform and set the building on fire.
Tass said court records showed that four of the hostage-takers were from former Soviet Central Asian countries; all the concert hall attack suspects are from Tajikistan.
Authorities closed off the road leading to the prison and sent in officers to try to end the violence.