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Shooting has broken out in the southern Russian city of Nalchik, five days after 130 people were killed in clashes between security forces and rebels. Officials said they were in the middle of a fresh operation against militants, who are believed to have Chechen links. There were reports of gunshot in three districts of the city, including close to the morgue where the bodies of dozens of those killed are being held. Residents are being urged to stay in their homes. Parents are also being advised to collect their children from school. Russian media reports say police killed a...

THE diehard gang of Muslim extremists responsible for last week’s attack on the southern Russian city of Nalchik consisted mainly of local militants intent on creating a strict Islamic state independent of Moscow, according to security sources in the region. The disclosure that the gunmen were not sent from the war-torn republic of Chechnya but belonged to a group from Kabardino-Balkaria, the Russian republic of which Nalchik is the capital, will be of great concern to the Kremlin. It provides alarming evidence that far from dying down — as claimed by President Vladimir Putin — the bloody Chechen conflict is...

NALCHIK, Russia - When Zarema Valgasova last saw her son, he was semiconscious and bleeding profusely from a badly broken arm with cigarette burns on his body - the result, she says, of police torture after his arrest. After Thursday's attack by dozens of Islamic militants on police and security facilities in the southern Russian city of Nalchik, police rounded up more than three dozen people - most of them Muslim men.

MOSCOW. Oct 14 (Interfax) - Russia expressed anger on Friday because British media allowed Chechen separatist envoy Akhmed Zakayev, who has political asylum in the UK, to voice "public support" for Thursday's attack by militants on Nalchik, the capital of the Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria. "This propagandist of terrorism, this terrorist instigator again expressed public support for terror, for the barbaric actions of the militants in Kabardino-Balkaria. Once again, he openly and blatantly called for violence, for killing Russian civilians," Anatoly Safonov, the Russian presidential envoy for international cooperation in combating terrorism, said in a commentary on the Russian Foreign...

Siege aftermath: burnt-out cars outside the police station in Nalchik where Chechen militants holed up after storming the town. Photo: AFP RUSSIAN special forces claimed to have quelled the biggest assault by Chechen militants in more than a year yesterday in two special operations in southern Russia, which they said freed seven hostages and left at least 10 rebel fighters dead. Eight radical Islamist gunmen had been holed up in a police station with five hostages in Nalchik, a city not far from Chechnya, while two or three other gunmen had barricaded themselves inside a gift shop with two...

100 dead as Russia routs rebel gang By Carl Schreck in Moscow (Filed: 15/10/2005) Russian security forces claimed yesterday to have routed Islamist rebels from the southern city of Nalchik, a day after gunmen stormed government buildings and the airport in an assault in which more than 100 people died. Soldiers and police were last night searching for the remnants of the rebel force, which was said to number about 150 men drawn from the ranks of Chechen separatists and their local sympathisers. The body of a dead gunman lies in front of a police station Shots were reported as...

From an e-mail from LauraMansfield.com: "We have put together a special report consisting of translations from international media regarding yesterday's attack on Nalchik by Chechen Islamist Terrorists. There are some very interesting reports - including one that discusses the formation of a branch of HAMAS in the Caucasus and a call from a prominent Muslim leader demanding the banning of Wahhabism in Russia. We believe this is rapidly becoming the most comprehensive repository of news coverage on this subject. We are continuously updating the report so please access it at http://www.lauramansfield.com/j/nalchik.asp"

MOSCOW -- Authorities said today that 108 people have been killed in Russia's North Caucasus region as Islamic militants have staged coordinated attacks on police and government buildings in a new wave of violence spilling over from war-torn Chechnya. At least 24 law enforcers, 12 civilians and 65 guerrillas have died in the two days of fighting in Nalchik, capital of the predominantly Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, authorities said. Seven more guerrillas were reported killed in an outlying district and 17 were captured. Gunmen who held hostages overnight in a Nalchik police station and in a souvenir shop were killed...

Russian security forces say they rescued 7 hostages captured by the terrorists when they swept through the Caucasian town of Nalchik Thursday October 13, 2005, 9:58 AM (GMT+02:00) Five were freed and their 8 captors killed while escaping in a minibus. At least 85 killed in the assault, but it is not clear how many were civilians or how many terrorists escaped. Putin gave shoot to kill orders and had the town sealed off Thursday afternoon, Oct. 13, hours after some 300 terrorists mounted simultaneous raids on 3 police headquarters, federal military bases, a gun store and the regional airport...

ALARM - Naltchik: the police force gives the attack to a building NALTCHIK (Russia) - the police force gave the attack Friday morning to a store of Naltchik (the Caucasus of north) where had taken refuge Thursday of the combatants of an armed commando, noted a journalist of AFP.

Putin gave shoot to kill orders and had the town sealed off Thursday afternoon, Oct. 13, hours after some 300 terrorists swept through the capital of the Caucasian Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkaria bordering on Chechnya and mounted simultaneous raids on 3 police headquarters, federal military bases, a gun store and the regional airport. The police HQ caught fire, another police building was besieged and hostages were taken. Some of the casualties are civilians. All schools were evacuated. Russian federal troops and special forces supported by combat helicopters and armed vehicles engaged the terrorists in clashes during the day. Nalchik regional...

NALCHIK, Russia Oct 13, 2005 — Scores of Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in this city in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region Thursday, sparking battles that killed at least 63 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, according to Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin.

<p>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.</p>

About 60 people have been shot dead in gun battles around a school and airport in southern Russia. Chechen rebels have claimed on a web site that they were behind the attacks in the region of Kabardino-Balkariya this morning. Most of the victims are reported to have been rebels, though 12 people living in the town of Nalchik are said to have been killed. The gunmen have also stormed a police station and taken hostages, Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin envoy to southern Russia, told state television. Efforts were underway to free them, he said. "These were meticulously planned and synchronised...

Gun battles raged in a town in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region after about 150 armed men, described as "religious extremists", staged lightning raids in which security forces killed 50 of the attackers. Emergency services quoted by Itar-Tass news agency reported many civilian casualties after a morning of mayhem in Nalchik, main city of the Muslim Kabardino-Balkaria region, which is near rebel Chechnya. Moscow radio said the dead included 20 members of the security forces while another 40 people were being treated for wounds. Itar-Tass said Russian forces had killed 50 of the 150 gunmen who attacked the town. The agency...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A massive gunbattle raged in a town in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region on Thursday after armed men, described by police as "religious extremists", attacked police buildings and other targets. Interfax news agency said the group staged a wave of simultaneous attacks on strategic buildings housing Russian forces in Nalchik, main city of the Muslim Kabardino-Balkaria region, which is near rebel Chechnya. "At the present moment, federal forces have clashed with certain armed bands. Steps are being taken to eliminate the bandits," Nikolai Shepel, deputy state prosecutor for the region, was quoted as saying by Interfax. "Fighting is...

ALARM - men armed in a school with Naltchik VLADIKAVKAZ (Russia) - armed men entered a school of Naltchik, the capital of the Russian Caucasian republic of Kabardino-Balkarie, and shootings were heard there, brought back a witness, questioned by telephone by AFP since the republic close to Ossétie of North.