Dozens dead after militants attack Caucasus city

Islamic militants attacked police and government buildings in one of the main cities of Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region today, sparking battles in which dozens of people died, officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by ordering a total blockade of the city of Nalchik to prevent militants from slipping out and ordered security forces to shoot any armed resisters.

Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkariya, a republic near Chechnya. Death tolls ranged from 49 to 63.

Twenty-five rebels were killed, along with 12 police officers and 12 civilians, said Fyodor Shcherbakov, a spokesman for presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak. He said the number was rising as bodies were being discovered.

Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin told Putin that 50 militants had been killed and that ten police officers had also died. Local officials said another three civilians were among the dead, and that 84 were wounded.

The Interfax news agency quoted Russia’s deputy prosecutor as saying 12 rebels had been detained. Estimates of the number of militants involved were from 60 to 300.

The Chechen rebels’ decade-long struggle against Russia, originally a separatist movement, has melded increasingly with Islamic extremism in the past decade and spread far beyond Chechnya’s borders to encompass the whole Russian Caucasus region.

Police and security forces have fought pitched battles with militants across the region, often engaging in urban warfare, and the rebels have employed terrorist methods including suicide bombings and the seizure of more than 1,000 hostages last year in a school in the town of Beslan, about 60 miles southeast of Nalchik.

The Kavkaz-Centre website, seen as a voice for rebels loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, said it had received a short message claiming responsibility for today’s attack on behalf of the Caucasus Front.

It said the group is part of the Chechen rebel armed forces and includes Yarmuk, an alleged militant Islamic group based in Kabardino-Balkariya.

The strategy of launching simultaneous attacks on police facilities was similar to last year’s siege in another Caucasus republic, Ingushetia, in which 92 people died and police armouries were looted. Basayev claimed responsibility for those attacks.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said that detained suspects told authorities that today’s attack was carried out under orders from two wanted militants – one of them an active supporter of Basayev.

Chekalin, the deputy interior minister, said the fighting began after police launched an operation to capture about 10 militants in a Nalchik suburb, and that the attacks were aimed at diverting police.

All 10 suspected militants were killed, he said.

Kozak, Putin’s envoy to the southern region, said the assailants were holding hostages at a police station.

A spokeswoman for the republic’s Interior Ministry said police on the upper floors of the building were battling attackers on the ground floor. He denied, however, that hostages had been taken.

A woman leaving the building said one female civilian, whom she described as a hostage, was left in the building, along with two wounded rebels. An armoured personnel carrier was shelling the building.

Gunmen attacked three police stations, the city’s airport and the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, a police officer said. They also attacked the city’s military commissariat and raided a hunting store, apparently for weapons, the officer said.

The attack at the airport was repelled, the facility was placed under military control and all flights were cancelled, news reports said.

The militants also attacked the regional headquarters of the Russian prison system, the Emergency Situation Ministry’s press office said. Interfax said that a border guards’ office also came under attack.

A teacher from School No. 5, who gave only his first name, Spartak, said children had been evacuated from the building, near a police station and an anti-terrorism office at the centre of the attacks.

Black smoke billowed from the building as panic-stricken parents searched for their children in the school yard.

Russian news agencies quoted various officials as saying the battles were dying down, amid official claims that authorities had the situation under control.

However, an officer at the regional Interior Ministry said there was new fighting in the suburb of Khasaniya, and that a police station had been attacked.