(Reuters) - Twenty people were injured when hundreds of anti-Israeli protesters stormed on Sunday an airport in&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;Dagestan&nbsp;region before security forces closed the airport and removed the demonstrators.
Here are some&nbsp;facts&nbsp;about&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;mainly Muslim&nbsp;republic&nbsp;of&nbsp;Dagestan, where waves of violence have erupted in the past.
* A mountainous territory in the eastern part of the North Caucasus,&nbsp;Dagestan&nbsp;is&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;most ethnically and linguistically varied region and home to at least 40 different ethnicities. A&nbsp;republic&nbsp;within the Russian Federation,&nbsp;Dagestan's population is&nbsp;about&nbsp;3.2 million, according to&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;official figures.
* The majority of&nbsp;Dagestanis are Sunni Muslims.
* It is sometimes known as the Mountain of Languages, or Mountain of Nationalities - with some national groups occupying no more than one or two villages.
* The capital, Makhachkala, on&nbsp;Russia's&nbsp;Caspian Sea coast, was conquered by the Russian Imperial army in the 19th century and served as a major pre-revolutionary trading port. Today,&nbsp;Dagestan&nbsp;is a conduit for major oil and gas pipelines, which go from the Caspian Sea to the Russian heartland.
* For almost a decade until 2017, Russian security forces were battling an armed insurgency conducted by an array of Islamist militant groups in&nbsp;Dagestan, neighbouring Chechnya and Ingushetia.
* Islam came to present-day Russia by way of&nbsp;Dagestan's ancient southern city of Derbent, when Arabs brought the faith at least 1,000 years ago. After being discouraged under communism, Islam in&nbsp;Dagestan&nbsp;has flourished. The&nbsp;republic&nbsp;hosts some 3,000 mosques, Islamic institutes and schools.
*&nbsp;Dagestan&nbsp;is the birthplace of legendary Islamic fighter Imam Shamil, who resisted Russian rule for 25 years in the 19th century. Many streets and places are named after him.
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(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Factbox-Facts about Russia's republic of Dagestan