Militants stormed parliament in Russia’s conflict-torn Chechnya yesterday, holding deputies and gunning down guards, before being killed in a bloody standoff with security forces.
The group of up to four militants broke into the parliament building in the Chechen capital Grozny early in the morning, killing four people and sparking fears of a major hostage crisis before security forces moved in.
Officials said that all the militants were killed. Reports added that some had been shot dead, while others had killed themselves by detonating suicide charges.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“We heard shots in the courtyard and we knew they were trying to take us hostage. We managed to take refuge on the third floor where we stayed until the end of the operation,” said Zelim Yakhikhanov, spokesman for the Chechen parliament.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov told the Interfax news agency that Chechen security forces staged an intense 20-minute operation to kill the militants and free the parliament deputies and employees from the building.
“All deputies are alive and were taken from the territory of the parliament building to safety,” Kadyrov said.
Three interior ministry security guards and one civilian employee of the parliament were killed after militants stormed the parliament building, a spokesman for the interior ministry said.
Russian news agency reports said that two militants blew -themselves up in suicide blasts and the others were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces.
According to the investigative committee of prosecutors, 17 people were wounded in the raid.
Interfax said parliamentary speaker Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov had been evacuated from the parliament building in an armored vehicle and had not been hurt.
Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev — by coincidence on a trip to Grozny — described the operation by the security forces to free the deputies as a success and claimed Chechnya was “stable and safe.”
“As always, they [the militants] failed. They were intercepted by interior ministry troops,” he said at a televised meeting at the local interior ministry.
“Situations like today occur very rarely. Here [in Chechnya] it is stable and safe. The militant underground has been practically decapitated,” he said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is attending a summit in France and a Kremlin official said he had been kept informed in a telephone conversation with Nurgaliyev, Kadyrov and FSB security service chief Alexander Bortnikov.
The special operation was personally led by Kadyrov, Interfax quoted a security source as saying.
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