Three militants killed in gun battle

SECURITY forces stormed an apartment building in southern Russia yesterday, killing three suspected Islamic militants who had barricaded themselves inside, law enforcement officials said.

A fierce gun battle broke out early yesterday, said an officer in the Interior Ministry department in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkariya, where the one-day stand-off came to an end. Security forces used grenade launchers to lob canisters of tear gas into the building before entering, he said.

The officers broke down a metal door to the second-floor apartment but retreated due to a high concentration of gas as well as smoke from a fire that had broken out.

Authorities eventually entered the apartment after the blaze was extinguished, finding three bodies. One was identified as Russian, one as either Kharachayev or Cherkessk, and the third was unrecognisable.

Footage broadcast on NTV showed thick smoke billowing from the apartment building, while heavily armed soldiers rushed to enter.

The incident is the latest in a series of confrontations between law-enforcement authorities and alleged extremists in the volatile North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya.

Last month, security forces killed seven alleged Islamic extremists in the same city in a two-day battle with members of the so-called Yarmuk group.

On Saturday, three people were detained and police searching a house confiscated one gun, four grenades and Islamic literature produced by the conservative Wahhabi sect.

Russia’s southern provinces have been plagued by a spillover of violence from Chechnya, including the September school hostage-taking in the city of Beslan in which some 330 people were killed.