Series of attacks launched in Russian provincial capital
NALCHIK, Russia – Militants attacked police and government buildings in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region Thursday, taking hostages and turning a provincial capital into a war zone rocked by gunfire and explosions that left at least 85 people dead, mostly insurgents.
Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the offensive in Nalchik, the capital of the mostly Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkariya, as a new front opened in the Kremlin’s decade-old battle against Islamic insurgents.
The rebels’ struggle against Russia, originally a separatist movement, increasingly has melded with Islamic extremism in the past decade and fanned out beyond Chechnya’s borders to encompass the entire Caucasus region.
The insurgent strategy of simultaneous attacks on facilities in Nalchik, a city of 235,000, was similar to a rebel siege last year in another Caucasus republic, Ingushetia, in what appears to be an attempt to target areas outside Chechnya and keep Moscow off-balance.
Kabardino-Balkariya is the fifth of seven republics in the mountainous region to be hit by the spillover of violence from the struggle in Chechnya. The insurgents are trying to exploit tensions among a variety of ethnic groups in the impoverished region as well as native Muslims and the ethnic Russians, who are Christian.
President Vladimir Putin, beleaguered by attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians and underscored his failure to bring the southern area under control, ordered a total blockade of Nalchik to prevent militants from slipping out. He told security forces to shoot any armed resisters.
Thursday’s fighting began about 8:30 a.m. after police launched an operation to capture about 10 militants in a Nalchik suburb. All 10 suspected militants were killed, Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said.
Interfax cited an unidentified law enforcement official as saying fighting was sparked by an attempt by militants to free a group of detained adherents to the radical Wahhabi sect of Islam.
Gunmen staged simultaneous attacks against three police stations, the city’s airport and the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service in what appeared to be an effort to divert police.
The attack at the airport was repelled, the facility was placed under military control and all flights were canceled, 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 a border guard office also came under attack.
Cars were overturned or gutted by gunfire, and Russian television footage showed the bloodied bodies of what appeared to be attackers in the streets.
The heavy fighting quieted down after about six hours, though sporadic gunfire continued and officials said militants were holding several hostages at a police station – and released captives said others were being held at a building housing a souvenir shop.