Arson suspected at Jewish community center in central Russia

A Jewish community center in Perm, a city in central Russia, sustained minor damage in what police suspect was attempted arson with fire bombs.

Firefighters in Perm, a municipality located on the banks of the Kama River near the Ural Mountains, put out a small fire inside the local Jewish community center on March 9, the government-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily reported.

The fire is believed to have been caused by two bottles filled with a flammable liquid that were thrown into the center from outside the building.

Police suspect a provocation ahead of a festive event which took place on March 10, when Orthodox Jews of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement introduced a Torah scroll to a synagogue that operates inside the Jewish community center. Some 400 people attended the event, according to the Israel-based Russian-language news site Izrus.co.il.