NALCHIK, Russia, 14 October 2005 — Chechen rebels launched a major attack on police and government buildings in a provincial capital in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region yesterday, turning the city into a war zone wracked by gunfire and explosions.
Officials said at least 85 people, including 61 attackers, were killed and that militants were holding hostages at a police station.
Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the offensive in Nalchik, the capital of the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, which opened a new front in Russia’s decade-old war against rebels.
President Vladimir Putin, beleaguered by attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians and underscored his failure to bring the turbulent Caucasus under control, ordered a total blockade of Nalchik to prevent militants from slipping out and ordered security forces to shoot any armed fighter.
After the fighting died down, Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Novikov said late yesterday that 61 militants were killed, some from Kabardino-Balkaria and some from other republics in the Russian Caucasus. Fyodor Shcherbakov, a spokesman for presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak, said earlier that 12 civilians and 12 police officers were killed. Russian news agencies, citing figures from Russia’s Center for Catastrophic Medicine, reported that 13 people were killed and 116 others were hospitalized, but it was unclear whether those figures referred only to civilians.
Estimates of the number of militants involved ranged from 60 to 300, and the Interfax news agency quoted an aide to the president of Kabardino-Balkaria as saying that 17 had been detained.
The Kavkaz-Center website, seen as a voice for rebels loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, said it had received a short message claiming responsibility for yesterday’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 group based in Kabardino-Balkaria.
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 armories were looted. Basayev claimed responsibility for those attacks and the Beslan raid.
Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said suspects detained during yesterday’s fighting said the offensive was carried out under orders from two wanted militants — one of them an active supporter of Basayev.
Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said yesterday’s 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.
As darkness fell, Chekalin said militants holed up in two offices at a police station were holding hostages and battling security forces, and that three attackers were putting up resistance at a souvenir shop. Police and security forces were combing the rest of the blockaded city searching for militants who might be hiding or wounded, he said.
Gunmen attacked three police stations, the city’s airport and the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service in the morning offensive, 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 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 guards’ office also came under attack.
