Police and gunmen in shoot-out at Russian school

Police and security forces today battled gunmen in and around a school in Nalchik, the capital of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya.

A teacher from the school, who did not give her name, said the children had been evacuated.

At least three suspected militants were killed, according to the southern Russian district office of the Interior Ministry.

A policeman was wounded in the shoot-out, said Marina Kyasova, a spokesman for the Kabardino-Balkariya regional office of the ministry.

Intense shooting could be heard.

The Interfax news agency reported that gunmen had launched simultaneous attacks on the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service, as well as a number of other buildings.

Kabardino-Balkariya, along with other southern Russian regions, has seen a rise in Islamic extremist movements and violence targeting police, soldiers and other law enforcement officials in recent years linked to the decade-old guerrilla conflict in breakaway Chechnya.