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Dozens die as Russian city raided

by BBC (reposted)
Civilians are feared to be among 60 people killed in clashes between police and gunmen in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, say Russian media reports.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the city of Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria province, to be sealed off as police hunt the rebels.

Officials say the situation is now under control, but some hostages are being held at a local police station.

Militants from nearby Chechnya are believed to be behind the attacks.

A pro-rebel website said it had received information from rebel sources that a unit of Chechen armed forces had entered Nalchik. Kabardino-Balkaria lies close to war-ravaged Chechnya.

A school and the city's airport, as well as government buildings, were all caught up in the running gun-battles.

One unidentified security official has told Russian news agency Ria that the reason for the attack was the arrest on Wednesday of at least one radical extremist.

Hostage operation

Russia's Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said Mr Putin ordered the city to be completely sealed off to ensure not a single fighter can escape.

"Those who resist will be eliminated," he said.

He was also quoted as saying he knew of no civilians killed in the fighting. Earlier, regional President Arsen Kanokov said 12 civilians had died.

Mr Kanokov also told Itar-Tass news agency that a third of the 150 rebels who took part in attacks had been killed.

Dmitry Kozak, Mr Putin's special envoy to the area, told Russian television that five police officers had also died.

He said an operation was under way to free hostages from No 3 police precinct, adding that the things were returning to normal elsewhere in the town.

A source at Nalchik's Republican Hospital told Ekho Moskvy radio that 20 dead had been brought in, "all people in uniform", and at least 40 wounded people.

Frantic parents

Fighting broke out in the Belaya Rechka area early on Thursday and spread to several parts of the city.

A local Interior Ministry source told Itar-Tass that rebels launched a "carefully planned" simultaneous attack on police stations, Russia's federal security forces, military and drugs-control offices as well as the airport.

Smoke rises over Nalchik

"There was heavy fighting everywhere. Attacks have been repelled, there have been fatalities and wounded," the official said, but adding that some of the attackers had been destroyed and scattered.

A teacher at the school reportedly caught up in the fighting said all the pupils had been evacuated. Parents searched frantically for their children in the school yard as black smoke billowed overhead.

Shooting is now said to be sporadic.

The BBC's Emma Simpson in Moscow says this appears to have been an all-out attack on Nalchik's law enforcement and security services.

The pro-rebel Kavkaz Center website said that a detachment of the Chechen-linked Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat, called Yarmuk, had entered Nalchik.

The use of the word jamaat indicates that it is made up of radical Islamic fighters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4337100.stm
by Kavkaz (reposted)
Battles have erupted today in the morning on Thursday in capital of Kabardino-Balkariya. Occupational sources report that nearby 09:30 on local time on all power structures -- the Ministry of Internal Affairs of republic, FSB, army, police stations, and also on the airport, and hunting shop "Arsenal" and on a training work-farm were subjected by simultaneous attacks of Mujahideen. Explosions and firefights are hearable in the city.

The building of police station №2 in Nalchik is burning where there the center on struggle with so-called “extremism and criminal terrorism” is located.

Invaders report about possible capture of schools and kindergartens, but this information does not prove to be true.

Agency Regnum, referring to teachers of school of №5 in Nalchik, has said a clash took place in the building. Children had been evacuated, many have run up. Later on, a girl has run out from the building and said that the educational institution is seized by militants, and her brother still in the school. But the source in power structures has reported RIA Novosti that "hearings about capture of school are not contrary to fact". The school had been evacuated.

In a southwest part of Nalchik the teacher do not let out children from schools -- in streets the armed people open fire on defeat.

Battles have erupted in Nalchik with an attack on the airport. "The airport was protected with one of a company of military from Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation which have repelled attempt ", - the source in occupational structures reported.

Local channels do not report anything about the event, all news the local residents learn from news of the Moscow TV and radio.

The military commissariat of Kabardino-Balkariya has taken up all-round defense, reported the source in a staff of garrison of Nalchik. The municipal transportation in Nalchik, communication does not work.

One of base stations of mobile communication of "Megaphone" has been blown up in the city, RIA Novosti reported.

All flights in the airport of Nalchik are cancelled, "Interfax" agency reports referring to the press-service of Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation.

The turned car lays in the center of Nalchik on a crossroads of streets of Lenin and Nogoma. Battles are contining also in area of Strelki on suburb of city.

Kavkaz Center

http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2005/10/13/4146.shtml
by more
A total of 12 civilians, 12 policemen and about 20 fighters have been killed during attacks by Chechen separatists on police and army buildings in the southern Russian town of Nalchik.

"As a result of the operation, 12 police were killed and 12 civilians, and also about 20 fighters. Additionally, 12 fighters were detained," deputy state prosecutor Vladimir Kolesnikov was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency

The firefight on Thursday is still going in Nalchik, the main city of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya, including in a school near a police station.

Central Nalchik has been sealed off and police cars equipped with loudspeakers are circulating in the area, broadcasting messages to local residents to evacuate the quarter.

Nalchik is located some 150km west of the Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Hostages seized

The attackers have taken hostages in a police station which they stormed, a senior official said on Thursday.

"There are two hotspots where there are organised clashes. One is the No 3 police precinct, where unfortunately there are hostages," Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin's envoy to southern Russia, said on state television.

"An operation is now under way (to free the hostages)," he said.

Earlier, Interfax news agency said the group staged a wave of simultaneous attacks on strategic buildings housing Russian forces in Nalchik on Thursday.

Chechen separatists took responsibility for the attack.

The Kavkaz-Center Web, considered a voice for fighters loyal to Chechen commander Shamil Basayev, said it had received a short message claiming responsibility on behalf of the so-called Caucasus Front, which it said was part of the Chechen separatist armed forces and which includes Yarmuk, an armed Muslim group based in Kabardino-Balkariya.

Manhunt on

RIA Novosti agency later quoted a regional security source as saying the attacks had been beaten off and a hunt was under way to track down the armed gangs responsible.

The Interfax news agency reported that security forces also repelled an attack against the city's airport.

At least three suspected fighters were killed, a duty officer at the southern Russian district office of the Interior Ministry said on customary condition of anonymity.

He said the fighting began after police in Nalchik received an anonymous telephoned tip that a group of about 10 armed fighters had entered the city, and police and security forces launched a special operation to capture them.

A source in the Kabardino-Balkariya police department said on condition of anonymity that three police units in the city had been attacked by unknown assailants on Thursday morning.

Intense shooting

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

Intense shooting from automatic rifles and grenade-launchers and could be heard in the centre of the city. The North Caucasus department on fighting terrorism and city police unit No 2 are located behind School No 5.

Interfax reported that armed men 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.

Citing an unidentified source in law-enforcement structures, Interfax said that the battle was sparked by the detention of a group of adherents of Wahhabi Islam, and that their fellow believers were trying to free them.

It said that federal forces had surrounded Nalchik.

Kabardino-Balkaria is a Muslim region in the Caucasus that borders the North Ossetia province where Chechen separatists attacked a school in the town of Beslan in September 2004, resulting in the deaths of 331 people, half of them children.

Caucasus front

Chechen separatist leader Abdul-Khalid Sadulayev has tried to set up what he calls a "Caucasus front" since he took over the leadership of the movement in March, and said attacks in other Muslim regions would be coordinated with those by his own forces.

The attack on Nalchik is also reminiscent of an operation in June 2004 when pro-Chechen fighters attacked police buildings in Nazran and effectively seized control of Ingushetia - near Kabardino-Balkaria - for several hours.

About 60 people, many of them police, were killed in that attack.

Past attacks

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

In December, armed men raided the regional branch of the federal Drug Control Agency in Nalchik, killing four employees, looting an arsenal and setting the office ablaze.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered security forces to deal more severely with suspected Muslim fighters in the south. Law-enforcement agencies have launched a series of sweeps targeting suspected extremists outside Chechnya.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ABC78AA2-3A45-4C30-8B1A-463C604CD430.htm
by IOL (reposted)
NALCHIK, Russia, October13 , 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – More than 60 people have been killed Thursday, October13 , in simultaneous attacks on government buildings in the southern Russian city of Nalchik claimed by Chechen fighters, as President Vladimir Putin ordered sealing off the city and issued shoot-to-kill orders for any person who puts up armed resistance to security forces.

Firefight broke out in Nalchik, the main city of the Muslim Kabardino-Balkaria region near Chechnya, when gunmen launched a series of coordinated attacks on several government buildings, reported Reuters.

Deputy state prosecutor Vladimir Kolesnikov told reporters up to 100 fighters had simultaneously attacked three police stations and other buildings housing border guards, Federal Security Service (FSB) officials, special riot police and an anti-terrorist center.

He said 20 fighters were killed and 12 of their number seized by security forces while Itar-Tass news agency said Russian forces killed 50 of the attackers.

Moscow radio said that 20 members of the Russian security forces had also been killed in the clashes.

A source at Nalchik's Republican Hospital told Ekho Moskvy radio that20 dead had been brought in, "all people in uniform".

At least 40 injured people had been taken to the hospital, with more arriving all the time, the source added.

Footage broadcast by Russia's NTV television station showed several corpses lying in the streets in pools of blood and covered over with blankets during the attack launched around 9 a.m. and winding down around midday.

Interfax news agency said the attackers also attempted to attack the Nalchik airport but were thwarted.

Nalchik is located some150 km west of the Chechen capital Grozny.

Hostages

Dmitry Kozak, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy to the area, told Russian television that an operation was under way to free hostages taken by the attackers, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"There are clashes in more than two areas. It is at police station number three where, unfortunately, there are hostages. An operation is under way to try to secure their release," he said.

But Kozak did not say how many hostages were being held.

Describing the attacks as an organized assault "on the law enforcement system of the city", the Russian official said armored vehicles and special forces troops were involved in efforts to subdue the attackers.

Shoot-to-Kill Orders

Putin, who came to power in 2000 by talking tough on Chechnya, ordered sealing off the southern city and issued shoot-to-kill orders for any person who puts up armed resistance to security forces.

"The president ordered that not a single fighter be allowed to leave the city limits," Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said as after meeting the Russian leader at his official country residence outside Moscow.

"Anyone who puts up resistance with weapons in his hands must be liquidated" on the spot, he added.

"This order from the president will be carried out."

Putin's orders are a gloomy reminder of the Beslan hostage crisis when Russian security forces stormed s school in northern Ossetia in early September, 2004 to free some 400 people taken hostage by Chechen fighters.

Web Claim

A statement posted on an Internet Web site used regularly by Chechen fighters said the attack was mounted by a unit of the Caucasus Front of the Armed Forces of the Chechen Ishkeria Republic.

The Kavkaz center web site said the fighters belonged to the "Yarmuk jamat of Kabardino-Balkaria."

Interfax quoted an official as saying that the attacks were in reprisal for the recent arrest in Nalchik of a group of Islamists, whom the gunmen were attempting to free.

The Yarmak unit was the target of a swoop by security forces in January.

The Nalchik attack was the latest in a series by Chechen fighters on Russian federal security installations in the volatile North Caucasus region.

Large teams of Chechen fighters have carried out similar attacks in other cities in the region in the past with one of their key tactical objectives apparently being the acquisition of weapons from security personnel.

The small mountainous Caucasus republic has been ravaged by conflict since 1994 , with just three years of relative peace after the first Russian invasion of the region ended in August 1996 and the second began in October1999 .

It was on December11 , 1994 that former Russian president Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya to subdue an increasingly powerful separatist movement.

After two years of horrific fighting, Russian troops pulled out in1996 .

In 1999 , then-prime minister Vladimir Putin pushed some80 , 000Russian troops into Chechnya in what Moscow called a lightning-strike “anti-terror operation” but which has since degenerated into a grinding war with Chechen fighters.

At least100 , 000Chechen civilians and10 , 000Russian troops are estimated to have been killed in both invasions, but human rights groups have said the real numbers could be much higher.

Thousands of refugees from war-torn Chechnya live in battered tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia and refuse to return home because of continuing insecurity.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2005-10/13/article04.shtml
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