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63 die in Chechen attack

Scores of militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in one of the main cities of Russia's turbulent Caucasus region yesterday, sparking battles involving heavy-arms fire and explosions. At least 63 people were killed, officials said.

Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkariya, a republic near Chechnya, which involved between 60 and 300 insurgents, reports said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a total blockade of the city of 235,000 to prevent militants from slipping out, and said armed resisters would be shot.

"The president gave an instruction that not one gunman should be allowed to leave the town, and those who are armed and putting up resistance must be wiped out," Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said.

Chekalin told Putin that 50 militants had been killed and that 10 police officers had also died.

Local Health Ministry spokesman Stepan Kuskov said at least three civilians were also among the dead, and that 84 people were wounded.

The republic has suffered a growing wave of violence apparently connected to Islamic extremists and the Chechen rebels' decade-long fight against Russian forces.

Dmitry Kozak, the president's envoy to the southern region, said that overall the town was under control.

"There is no mass attack going on. The bandits who attacked police stations and some other government buildings have been dispersed for the most part," he said.

But a police source was quoted as saying by Tass that, "These were meticulously planned and synchronized attacks."

At the height of the fighting, automatic firing resounded around the town and smoke rose from one of the main police buildings under attack.

A spokeswoman for the republic's Interior Ministry, Marina Kyasova, said police on the upper floors of the building were battling attackers on the ground floor.

A woman leaving the building yesterday afternoon said one female civilian, whom she described as a hostage, was left in the building, along with two wounded rebels. An armored personnel carrier was shelling the building.

Tass quoted police as saying the attackers had operated in 10 mobile groups, targeting five or six strategic points -- police buildings, Russian army units and a gun store.

The Kavkaz-Center Web site, seen as a voice for rebels loyal to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, said it had received a short message claiming responsibility on behalf of the Caucasus Front.

"Forces of the Caucasus Front -- a unit of the Chechen Republic's Armed Forces -- went into the town, including attack brigades from the Kabardino-Balkarian Yarmuk [Islamist brigade]," a statement on their Web site said.

The strategy of launching simultaneous attacks on police facilities echoed last year's siege in another Caucasus republic, Ingushetia, in which 92 people died and police armories were looted.
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