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