A homemade bomb went off in the early hours of Monday outside a synagogue in Russia. In the town of Tver, 170 km northwest of Moscow, a homemade device exploded and caused damage to the door and the entrance hall of the synagogue, and to several apartments nearby. No one was injured in the explosion. Russian anti-terrorism police are investigating the incident.
"Nobody was hurt in the explosion. The entrance to the synagogue was partly damaged. The shock wave broke windows in nearby buildings. Crime experts, representatives of the prosecutor's office and the Emergency Situations Ministry are still working at the scene," a police source told the Russian news agency ‘Interfax’.
"The explosion was a culmination of repeated attacks on practicing Jews," the Federation of Jewish Communities said in a statement. "Before this anti-Semitic slogans had appeared on the synagogue's walls, leaflets of anti-Semitic content had been circulated in the city and 140 gravestones at the Jewish part of the city cemetery had been defaced in 2009."
A criminal case has been opened against the perpetrators of the attack, who remain unknown.