A massive gunbattle raged in a town in Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region yesterday 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 going on everywhere. The attackers are trying to seize cars and burst their way out of the town,” an unnamed military source was quoted as saying by Interfax.

Sources said there had been at 12 least deaths among the civilian population and 64 had been wounded. “It’s a little too soon to say how many,” one source was quoted as saying by Interfax. RIA Novosti agency later quoted a regional security source as saying the attacks had been beaten off and a hunt was underway to track down the armed gangs responsible. Kabardino-Balkaria is a Muslim region in the Caucasus that borders the North Ossetia province where Chechen militants attacked a school in the town of Beslan in September 2004, resulting in the deaths of 331 people, half of them children.

The attacks bore the hallmarks of an operation by pro-Chechen militants who have been fighting for Chechnya independence since the early 1990s, and posed a new challenge to President Putin’s hardline policy in the region. Chechen separatist leader Abdul-Khalid Sadulayev has tried to set up what he calls a “Caucasus front” since he took over the leadership of the movement in March, and said attacks in other Muslim regions would be coordinated with those by his own forces. The attack on Nalchik was reminiscent of an operation in June 2004 when pro-Chechen militants attacked police buildings in Nazran and effectively seized control of Ingushetia for several hours.