Security forces today freed seven hostages held by alleged Islamic extremists in a police station and a store, trying to clear the remaining rebels who simultaneously attacked police and government buildings across the southern Russian town of Nalchik yesterday.

Russia’s interior minister has said that international terrorists are seeking to destabilise and weaken Russia with the tacit backing of Western countries.

Security officials have identified six of the militants who seized a school in southern Russia as Chechens, drawing a strong connection to the rebels who have been fighting Russian forces for years.

CHECHEN and Ingush militants who took part in last week’s deadly school siege in Russia were yesterday identified.

THOUSANDS of troops poured into a southern Russian city yesterday chasing suspected Chechen rebels who set fire to police and government buildings and killed at least 48 people in overnight attacks.

A SUICIDE bomb attack killed at least six people in the heart of Moscow yesterday, just two days after Russian voters handed President Vladimir Putin an even tighter grip on power.

A FIRE ripped through a Moscow dormitory crowded with newly arrived foreign students early yesterday, killing at least 36 people and injuring 127 others many of them forced to jump from the five-storey building because the exits were blocked.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cancelled a planned trip to Uzbekistan and Malaysia because of suicide bomber attacks on a Moscow rock festival that killed 15 people, the Kremlin said today.