NOVEMBER 2005

Published Thursday, October 13, 2005

NALCHIK, Russia (AP) - Scores of Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in this city in Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region today, sparking battles that killed at least 49 people. Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks, which forced the evacuation of schools and left corpses littering the streets of Nalchik, the capital of the republic of Kabardino-Balkariya.

President Vladimir Putin ordered a total blockade of Nalchik, a city of 235,000, to prevent militants from slipping out, and he said armed resisters would be shot, said Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin.

Estimates of the number of militants involved ranged from 60 to 300. The attacks began with heavy arms fire and explosions, and sporadic shooting continued for four hours afterward.

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 turbulent Russian Caucasus region. The extremism is spreading despite the government’s harsh anti-terrorist methods, from targeted killings of rebel leaders such as Aslan Maskhadov to paying rewards for information to the demolition of houses where suspected rebels have found refuge.