Posted on 10/13/2005 4:53:31 AM PDT by fishhound
Edited on 10/13/2005 8:31:53 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Civilians are believed to be among 60 people killed in clashes between police and rebels in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, say Russian media reports. Civilians are feared to be among 60 people killed in clashes between police and gunmen in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, say Russian media reports.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered Nalchik city in Kabardino-Balkaria province to be sealed off and for forces to shoot any armed resisters.
Officials say armoured vehicles and troops have been deployed and the situation is returning to normal.
Militants from nearby Chechnya are believed to be behind the attacks.
A pro-rebel website said it had received information from rebel sources that a unit of Chechen armed forces had entered Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.
'All-out attack'
A school and the city's airport, as well as government buildings, were caught up in the running gun-battles.
The BBC's Emma Simpson in Moscow says this appears to have been an all-out attack on Nalchik's law enforcement and security services.
Black smoke billowed across the city
Fighting broke out in the Belaya Rechka area early on Thursday and spread to several parts of the city.
A local Interior Ministry source told Itar-Tass that rebels launched a "carefully planned" simultaneous attack on police stations, Russia's federal security forces, military and drugs-control offices as well as the airport.
One unidentified security official has told Russian news agency Ria that the reason for the attack was the arrest on Wednesday of at least one radical extremist.
Correspondents say violence in Kabardino-Balkaria has been steadily increasing.
Political changes and a harsh crackdown on alleged Islamic militants appear to have pushed the region to the verge of instability, the BBC's regional analyst Steven Eke says.
'Eliminated'
Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said Mr Putin ordered the city to be completely sealed off to ensure not a single fighter could escape.
"Those who resist will be eliminated," he said.
He was also quoted as saying he knew of no civilians killed in the fighting.
A witness told the BBC she had seen the bodies of gunmen, soldiers and civilians in the streets. Earlier, regional President Arsen Kanokov said 12 civilians had died.
A third of the 150 rebels who took part in attacks had been killed, he told Itar-Tass news agency.
Five police officers had also died, Mr Putin's special envoy to the area, Dmitry Kozak, told Russian television.
He also said the gunmen had stormed one police station and taken hostages.
But officials quoted by Itar-Tass said they were later freed, although there were no details.
Mr Kozak said that overall the city was under control.
Website claim
The pro-rebel Kavkaz Center website said that a detachment of the Chechen-linked Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat, called Yarmuk, had entered Nalchik.
The use of the word jamaat indicates that it is made up of radical Islamic fighters.
The attacks are the latest in a series of disturbances that have been destabilising Russia's North Caucasus region for more than a year.
Correspondents say Nalchik is about 100 km (60 miles) north-west of Beslan, where Chechen rebels took hundreds of hostages at a school in 2004, in an attack claimed by warlord Shamil Basayev.
Our analyst says that after last year's Beslan massacre the government promised more money and support for the impoverished North Caucasus - but nothing has changed.
I'm glad that the US doesn't border Muslim countries like Russia does. We have enough trouble with Mexico. It seems like Russia does get hit rather regularly, doesn't it? *sigh*
I hope this isn't coming to a theatre near us. In other words, I pray that our government can protect us here in the U.S.A. Events like this, should show even the liberal Left, how important it is that we support our government. Or we could be going through this.
What I don't understand is why the US has not sided firmly with Russia in this struggle.
Russia probably had this problem for a long, long time.
It's just that now that the USSR and its rigid censorship of all/any news (Everything is perfect in the USSR.) is gone, we get to hear about it.
What I don't understand is why Russia has not sided firmly with the US in its struggle.
At first, the Russians did support us. Then the Bush Administration supported the Chechyans and the other breakaway muslim states, and that was the end of the Russian support for the US position. The US position was not very well thought out.
The Cossacks were originally sent south by the Czars to settle the North Caucasus specifically to provide an armed buffer against the (muslim) Turks. They smile when you compare our Cowboys and Indians vs. their Cossacks and Turks and say the only real similarity was that both groups generally did their work on horseback.
What's the difference? They're breeding within our borders and building mosques all over the place - it is part of the islamofascist strategy to take us over. It is working successfully throughout Europe, especially France and Great Britain.
The Cossacks were used more than once by the Czars to settle, er, problems.
No one with an ounce of knowledge about American history would make the comparison.
Neither cowboys nor Indians had that function.
The cowboys were working cattle men.
The Indians were Stone Age folks on their way out, who had made war on their own for thousands of years. Meeting ANY Iron Age visitors spelled doom for the once-isolated Indians. What the diseases of the outside world didn't do, the guns of the Iron Age did.
The Indians didn't even SEE a horse until Cortez and the Spaniards introduced them to the New World in 1519.....and it took a hundred years or so for the horse to breed and spread so that SOME Indians could afford them. And it took another hundred years or so for the Indians to become experts with them.
Too late for the Indians anyway.
It also shows that there is no knowledge of either Turks or Cossacks. Only ignorance.
Smile.
"What's the difference?"
about one hundred million Muslims.
The Cossack / Cowboy comment came from the time another American member of a group I was with in Krasnodar, the Kuban Region alluded to some similarities between the two and the reaction of our Russian hosts (all of whom claimed to be of Cossack stock) was not positive. I think "herdsmen vs. soldiers" was the phrase they used.
Smile back at ya.
Who is ignorant? Anywone without an ounce of knowledge of American history....who speaks about cowboys and Indians. Perhaps they got their U.S. history from the "oaters." Lol.
I understand that you were pointing out....you were clear.
The American who made the reference was probably just making light conversation, trying to be friendly.
Lol. If the American used "herdsmen vs. soldiers," then there WASN'T a comparison of cowboys and Indians.
Cowboys were indeed herdsmen, but Indians certainly weren't warriors in the sense of professional mercenaries like so many Cossacks were.
WAY too much HollywoodSleazywood has been seen, Kimosabe.
:o)
All they did was reluctantly share intel with us while supporting such odious regimes as Syria, Iran and Iraq. And it was not Bush but Clinton admin that supported the Chechen rebels. Under Bush it was the Foggy Bottom clintonites that continued receiving the Chechen reps for a while. It gradually fizzled out. We also pissed the Russians bad when we bombed the Serbs. But that was Clinton again. Now is the time to bury the hatchets and face the common enemy together. Russia has a 20 mln. strong muslim population and is almost surrounded by muslim nations where the wahhabi ideology is taking root slowly but surely. Russia will not be able to stand alone. It is only going to get worse. They will have to wake up and see who there real enemies are. When push comes to shove, who are they gonna rely on, France, China, Germany?
I agree. The Bush Admin policy is also pushing the Russians into an alliance with the Chinese, which is perhaps even more dangerous.
Instead of pushing them away, we should be trying to bring them over to our side. I would also point out that they have a lot of oil, and are busy cementing plans to sell that oil to the EU and to China. Why not encourage them to sell it to us?
I think that the Russians' dealings with Iraq, Syria, etc. is motivated by money more than ideology. I think that if they had an opportunity to engage in more commerce with the US, they would quickly learn that it is more lucrative than selling nuke plants to the Iranians, particularly since Iranian nuke plants endanger their own security.
Unfortunately, we don't seem to have any interest in commerce with the Russians.
We are there already. Sakhalin, Shtockman, etc. We have the techknologies they don't have. Without ERD technologies, they wouldn't be able to develop the Sakhalin fields.
Good point.
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