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Russians mop up after fight
with Islamic insurgents that claimed over 100 lives
 Photo:
Telatives and friends carry the body of Tamerlan Kazikhanov,
press-officer of regional police, killed in Nalchik on Thursday, at
a cemetery in the outskirts of Nalchik Friday.
NALCHIK, Russia- Russian security
forces in an armoured personnel carrier smashed through the wall of
a store to rescue two hostages held by Islamic insurgents Friday as
authorities tried to clear out the last pockets of rebel resistance
after more than a day of fighting that claimed least 108 lives.
Chechen rebels claimed involvement in the near-simultaneous attacks
on police and security facilities that began Thursday in this
southern Russian city of 235,000 and left corpses lying on the
streets. The fighting in the Kabardino-Balkariya republic near
Chechnya raised fears that Islamic rebels who have been fighting
Russian forces for most of the last decade were opening a new front
in the troubled Caucasus region. President Vladimir Putin praised
the response by the security forces but lamented that such attacks
can occur, news agencies quoted him as saying. "It is bad that such
bandit raids are still possible here," Putin told Interfax news
agency. He added, however, "it's good that this time all the
law-enforcement agencies worked in co-ordination, effectively and
tough." Putin has been beleaguered by attacks that have killed
hundreds of civilians and underscored his failure to bring the
turbulent Caucasus under control. On Thursday, he ordered a total
blockade of Nalchik to prevent the guerrillas from slipping out and
ordered security forces to shoot any armed resisters. Bloodied
corpses still lay in the streets on Friday. One was near the
entrance to police station No. 2 and the regional anti-terrorist
centre, where most of the windows had been blown out and even
tramway lines outside had been brought down. Seven more bodies were
sprawled across the street, most with horrific head wounds. Heavily
armed police poked and kicked at the bodies, presumably those of
insurgents, all clad in tracksuits and running shoes. ITAR-Tass news
agency said that some rebels tried to escape in a van but crashed
into a tree and were surrounded and killed. RIA-Novosti said there
were seven rebels and an unknown number of hostages in the vehicle.
The hostages were rescued, it said. Deputy Interior Minister
Alexander Chekalin said the fighting began Thursday after police
tried to capture about 10 militants in a Nalchik suburb, and that
the attacks were aimed at diverting police. All 10 suspects were
killed, he said. In freeing the two hostages Friday in the centre of
Nalchik, soldiers shot grenades through a barred window of a store.
Three rebels were killed, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir
Kolesnikov said. Zaur Makhsiyev, whose 20-year-old sister, Leyla,
had been inside the gift shop, said she was uninjured but suffering
the after-effects of an unspecified gas presumably used to
incapacitate the rebels. The use of gas could not be independently
confirmed. By midday, the head of the regional government, Gennady
Gubin, announced that all rebel resistance had been suppressed and
all captives had been freed, the Interfax news agency reported.
The president of
Kabardino-Balkariya, Arsen Kanokov, told Interfax that nearly 150
militants were involved in the attack and most of them were local
residents. He said the main reason for the attack was the republic's
difficult economic situation. "The population's low income and
unemployment create the soil for religious extremists and other
destructive forces to conduct an ideological war against us,"
Kanokov was quoted as saying. Earlier estimates ranged as high as
300 rebels taking part in the battle. At least 108 people, including
72 attackers, were killed in the fighting, according to a tally by
officials, news reports and an Associated Press reporter. Also among
the dead were 24 law enforcement officers and 12 civilians, Interior
Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told the RIA-Novosti news agency.
Interfax reported later that 12 insurgents had been killed in the
local office of the Russian prison administration, according to the
deputy administration chief, Valery Krayev. Nine hostages had been
freed from the building earlier Friday, leaving two behind, it said.
The two remaining hostages' fate was not known. It was unclear
whether the insurgents had any specific demands. Rebel strategy has
been to sow instability across the south, capitalizing on the
turbulent Caucasus Mountain region's grinding poverty to swell their
recruits, buying off corrupt officials to get weapons, and
unleashing terrorist bombings and hit-run attacks against police.
Nurgaliyev said 31 rebels were detained, RIA-Novosti reported.
State-controlled Channel One television showed detained men lined up
in the corridor of a police station, holding their hands behind
their necks and facing the wall. Six of the most gravely wounded
were being flown to Moscow, 1,400 kilometres to the north, for
treatment, ITAR-Tass reported. Outside Nalchik, in the suburb of
Khasanya, rebels shelled a police car Friday morning, killing two
riot police officers. Putin, meanwhile, indicated the central
government will continue taking an uncompromising line in the
region. "Our actions must be adequate for all the threats that
bandits make to our country. We will act hard and consistently, as
we did in this case." Militants battling Russian forces in the
region near Chechnya have employed terrorist methods including
suicide bombings and the seizure of more than 1,000 hostages last
year in a school in Beslan, about 100 kilometres southeast of
Nalchik. More than 330 people, mostly children, were killed in that
siege. My Michel Ekell
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