Armed men enter school in Russian republic, shots heard - witness

[ECH1969]

Armed men have entered a school in Nalchik, capital of the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, where shots have been heard, a witness told Agence France-Presse by telephone.

The witness said he had seen several children running out of school number five in Nalchik and one of the children, a girl around seven years old, said that gunmen were inside the school and that gunfire had occurred there.

Central Nalchik was sealed off and police cars equipped with loudspeakers circulated in the area broadcasting messages to local residents to evacuate the quarter.

The school was situated behind a police headquarters building and smoke hung over parts of the city.

http://www.forbes.com/work/feeds/afx/2005/10/13/afx2274637.html

[ECH1969]

1. bump

[fleabert]

2. nothing on the news yet, will keep looking...nt

[ECH1969]

3. Cops, Gunmen Battle Inside Russian School

NALCHIK, Russia - Police and security forces on Thursday battled gunmen in the capital of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya, including in a school near a police station.

At least three alleged militants were killed, the southern Russian district office of the Interior Ministry said.

Intense shooting could be heard.

Kabardino-Balkariya, along with other southern Russian regions, has seen a rise in Islamic extremist movements and violence targeting police, soldiers and other law enforcement officials in recent years linked to the festering decade-old guerrilla conflict in breakaway Chechnya .

http://www.leadingthecharge.com/stories/news-0085110.html

[ECH1969]

4. Not much on TV

[rainbow4321]

5. Police, Gunmen Engaged in Shootout in Southern Russian Region

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBUP6KNQEE.html

Police and security forces on Thursday battled gunmen in the capital of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya, including in a school near a police station.

A teacher from the school, who gave only his first name, Spartak, said the students had been evacuated. Black smoke billowed from the school as panic-stricken parents searched for their children in the schoolyard.

At least three alleged militants were killed, a duty officer at the southern Russian district office of the Interior Ministry said. He said that the fighting began after police in Nalchik received an anonymous telephoned tip that a group of about 10 armed militants had entered the city, and police and security forces launched a special operation to capture them

The Interfax news agency reported that gunmen had launched simultaneous attacks on the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service, as well as a number of other buildings.

[fleabert]

6. why isn't this on MSM?

it's messed up.

[MADem]

9. Because the Chechnyans were promptly killed, no little hostages

There isn't enough drama for it to make it to the three ring circus. Now, if there was compelling footage of little scared faces in the school window, shots of shrieking, sobbing parents, and dramatic views of reporters ducking behind cars while tough uniformed personnel storm the edifice, well, there's some CIRCUS for ya!

[roguevalley]

7. oh god. BBC is giving over three hours to the news service. check

there. they are doing it every day and plan a 24 hour channel soon.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Cops, Gunmen Battle Inside Russian School

October 13, 2005, 2:36 AM EDT

NALCHIK, Russia -- Police and security forces on Thursday battled gunmen in the capital of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya, including in a school near a police station.

A teacher from the school, who gave only his first name, Spartak, said the students had been evacuated. Black smoke billowed from the school as panic-stricken parents searched for their children in the schoolyard.

At least three alleged militants were killed, a duty officer at the southern Russian district office of the Interior Ministry said. He said that the fighting began after police in Nalchik received an anonymous telephoned tip that a group of about 10 armed militants had entered the city, and police and security forces launched a special operation to capture them.

A policeman was wounded in the fighting, said Marina Kyasova, a spokesman for the Kabardino-Balkariya regional office of the ministry.


http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-russia-attack,0,3148561.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

[leftchick]

10. CNNI: 20 dead over 50 wounded...

On TV now. They expect the death toll to rise. It appears to not be over....

[leftchick]

11. Reuters: Battle Rages!

Gunmen attack Russian Caucasus town, battle rages

http://olympics.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-10-13T093048Z_01_ROB322213_RTRUKOC_0_US-RUSSIA-ATTACK.xml

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Gunbattles raged in a town in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region on Thursday 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 quoted regional leader Arsen Kanokov as saying that 12 local residents were killed.

Interfax said fighting was still going on at one police building.

[acmavm]

12. I have no pity on anyone who attacks a school and harms children.

Not anyone. Chechnyan, Russian, American, Iraqi, Saudi, anyone.

[Bosso 63]

13. Damn right.

[hogwyld]

14. I Agree

But to play Devil's advocate, didn't the Russians start this mess by invading Chechnya? I'm sure they've killed their share of chechen children. Why can't russia just let the chechen's secede and let them have their own country. It would end a lot of needless bloodshed.

[LisaL]

57. For the same reason US wouldn't let any state to secede.

[HuckleB]

58. Hmm.

I guess we'd better put the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria and all the others back together as the Austro-Hungarian Empire then, eh?

[LisaL]

59. How about we just get out of Iraq?

[HuckleB]

61. Sounds like a general plan to me.

Again, though, your response sounds like an attempt to divert attention from the topic at hand.

[anotherdrew]

15. Chechnyan's have gone too far now

they are fighting for nothing. Russia needs to depopulate the region, split everyone up and move them the hell out of there.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Yeah, that's a good idea

:eyes:

BTW, the Russians have been doing their damndest to "depopulate" Chechnya for about 10 years...

[anotherdrew]

17. not really

but yeah, over-reaction on my part, but still do you think every separatist movement in the world should be OK? Where would it stop? I'll tell you... it would stop at the tribal level with sticks and stones.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. Return to primitivism

The apology of imperialists everywhere.

[anotherdrew]

33. this is not an issue of Imperialism

look at what these folks have done and tell me it's been worth it. Tell the over a hundred children killed at Beslan that "us Chechens just gotta be free baby". Bullshit they've long long time ago gone way to far, killed way to many people. And it's not as though all ethnic Chechens even support separation. Local rule, yes, but they would have that anyway, even if not one shot had been fired.

[HuckleB]

41. Yes it is.

The entire history of the Russians in the Caucasus is a history of Imperialism. You cannot put history into a vacuum in order to serve your purposes. That's dishonest and inaccurate.

[anotherdrew]

47. back then it was imperialism, today it's murder for nothing

[HuckleB]

48. So why are the Russians continuing to murder, pillage and destroy?

[LisaL]

52. Probably for the same reason americans do it.

[HuckleB]

54. I get it.

You think that humans should just ignore what the Soviets and Russians have done to Chechnya, while abhorring the terrible things done by Chechnyans, all because the US has done and continues to do terrible things.

Well, that's an "interesting" line of thought.

[LisaL]

55. Ignore it? US has no right to tell Russians not to do it, considering

they are doing the same things, and worse. It's like pot calling the kettle black.

[HuckleB]

56. Perhaps.

I guess you presume then that US citizens cannot offer such thoughts either, even when they condemn their own government's actions.

I guess I find that to be a type of philosophy that enables atrocities, and I cannot abide by it.

[anotherdrew]

60. they are trying to get the seperatists to stop

Please point me to any evidence yo have for Russian atrocities. I don't think most people living in the area really suport the seperatists either, I think they're a local mafia trying to take over basicly.

[HuckleB]

62. See post 50.

And see most human rights organizations. (Start with: http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/russia/chechnya/ and http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/cau/cau_200203_122_1_eng.txt ) Do your homework. You have to be kidding me if you are actually unaware of Russian atrocities. If so, you've got no business discussing anything about Chechnya, because you don't know the first thing about what's gone on there. Actually, this post of yours shows clearly how little you have actually paid attention to Chechnya. What you "think" about it offers a great example of the dangers of a little bit of information out of context.

[HuckleB]

28. Interesting...

So Russia can take over the area, treat its citizens like 3rd class peons for centuries, even deport the entire population under false pretenses, and on and on. In other words, Russia can treat Chechnya like its separate and an underling, but Chechnya cannot possibly desire independence in the face of such historic treatment. Yeah, that makes sense.

[anotherdrew]

32. "desire independence" is not what they have done...

rather Chechen separatists have started a reign of bloodshed killing more than a hundred-thousand. These kill-crazy freaks have: attacked and taken hostage entire hospitals, twice; attacked a theater full of hundreds of people leading to a great many deaths; used Grozny as a battle ground without warning any locals to get out; bombed apartment complexes (probably); and let's not forget Beslan where 1200 were taken hostage at a school and over 330 were killed – half of whom were children. Reliable estimates say two-hundred-thousand people have died at the hands of Chechen killers (many of them Russians living in the area for generations, so you see, they've been up to their own ethnic cleansing).

Also many Chechen's DON'T want to be separate from Russia, surely not under nationalist corupt wing-nuts like Dudayev. Would you like to address then also the "imperialism" of Islam 'invading' the area? Ottoman Turks eventually got them to convert, just a few hundred years ago...

It's just not so simple, granted the reporting on events there in the US over the last 15 years has generally been weak and overly fond of these cowardly murderers because it was politically expedient for us to jab a stick in russia's underbelly, but the truth is, these separatists do not have anyone's best interests in mind. At this point, if they got total independence, would the price have been worth it?

read the history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnyan

"since Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Republic of Chechnya's nationalist president, declared Chechnya's independence from Russia in 1991. Dudayev's cabinet was largely filled with relatives and members of his teip, many of whom were alleged to have been involved in criminal activities, and a few of whom had previous criminal convictions. This, combined with a failure to maintain control over the republic, saw his rule descend into chaos and wide-spread corruption. From 1991 to 1994, as many as 300,000 people of non-Chechen ethnicity (mostly Russians) fled the republic, and an unknown number (some estimate as high as 50,000) were murdered or disappeared. At this time, the slave trade also re-emerged in Chechnya (the earliest known person taken as a Chechen slave, Vladimir Yepishin, was kidnapped in 1989 and released in 2002, and claims to have come in contact with other slaves kidnapped by Chechens in the mid-80s). Chechen sources claim non-Chechens were victims of common criminals and were not singled out. Testimonies from Chechen refugees of the period strongly contradict this conclusion."

[HuckleB]

42. Again, you offer "history" out of context.

And then offer up a Reader's Digest version of Chechnya history that doesn't meet the needs of anyone who hopes to actually understand what's happened. It's ludicrous to argue that the vast majority of the population did not want independence, in the first place. It's also ludicrous to argue that the biggest issues regarding Chechnyan leadership did not occur because the Russians cut off that leadership at the neck, in the first place, in addition to destroying the infrastructure of the area, while leaving a massive proportion of the population dead or in exile. It's also ludicrous to discuss Chechnyan atrocities without addressing the reality that the Russians have done far worse over a much longer period of time in Chechnya itself. Anyone who fails to understand the sociology and psychology of people who have faced the Russian atrocities over the past 12 years is going to fail to comprehend the entire situation, as you clearly have done. Russia created the vacuum that led to Islamic extremists entereing the area, and it created the trauma that leads young men and women to follow such extremists. If you fail to understand that, you fail to understand everything about what's happening there and is likely to happen there in the future. Nevermind that the Forbes piece was inaccurate from the get go.

[LisaL]

34. Gee, independence.

Do you think US would go alone if some state decided to separate?

[anotherdrew]

37. good point

I'm sure if native american's decided to take north dakota by force of arms and kill thousands, let a slave trade develop and other heinous acts go on, all the while killing non-natives living in the area, the US would just say, oh well, we've been mean to them in the past, lets just let them have the state...

[LisaL]

38. Exactly. Let them go in peace. Especially if there was OIL in

North Dakota.

[HuckleB]

43. Do you think that the history of Chechnya matches that of any US state?

Thanks for offering up a red herring. I'll get the grill going.

[coalition_unwilling]

19. "Depopulate the regions, split everyone up and move them . . ."

Aren't you in actuality advocating a sanitized form of ethnic cleansing?

[anotherdrew]

20. what are the Chechnyan fighters doing if not that?

anyway, yeah, it's harsh but how will this near 15 year long pointless slaughter come to an end?

[coalition_unwilling]

22. Are you crazy? (Or maybe I'm not getting it . . .)

Few would suggest that Chechnyan resistance is trying to ethnically cleanse Russia. Fewer still would argue that their resistance to Russian imperialism is "ethnic cleansing."

[anotherdrew]

24. let's say, not getting it... read the history...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnyan

they are trying to ethnically cleanse Russian's out of the area for one thing, this is not a mono-ethnic environment. Not everyone want "independance" whatever that would mean. Not as though the place has been independant in any way for hundreds of years.

The person who started the latest round of pointless killing:
"Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Republic of Chechnya's nationalist president, declared Chechnya's independence from Russia in 1991. Dudayev's cabinet was largely filled with relatives and members of his teip, many of whom were involved in criminal activities, and a few of whom had previous criminal convictions."

So you see, this is not a brave heroic strugle for freedom, this is some well placed locals, with a little help from outside deciding they have a chance to be the big men and get rich, if they can just push the federal state out.

"This, combined with a failure to maintain control over the republic, saw his rule descend into chaos and wide-spread corruption. From 1991 to 1994, as many as 300,000 people of non-Chechen ethnicity (mostly Russians) fled the republic, and an unknown number (some estimate as high as 50,000) were murdered or disappeared. At this time, the slave trade also re-emerged in Chechnya (the earliest known person taken as a Chechen slave,"

[HuckleB]

45. You're getting it.

It's just that Russian propaganda gets more play in the MSM, in addition to some posters here at DU.

[HuckleB]

29. Yeah, or what the Soviets actually did to Chechnya during WW II.

[LisaL]

35. And US did horrible things to Native Americans.

How about Japanese? Weren't they put in camps during WWII?
What is your point, exactly?

[HuckleB]

40. So, because the US did nasty things...

you think that excuses the Soviets?

Very interesting.

[LisaL]

51. No, I think people that live in glass houses shouldn't trow stones.

[HuckleB]

53. Thanks for the cliche.

Unfortunately, it doesn't help move the discussion along. Nor does if foment any understanding of what has happened in Chechnya over the past decade or so, much less the past couple hundred years.

[anotherdrew]

36. they asked for it in WW2 by helping the NAZIs

"
The Chechens, though, again rose up against Soviet rule during the 1940s, resulting in the deportation of the Chechen population to the Kazakh SSR (later Kazakhstan) and Siberia during World War II. Stalin and others argued this was necessary in order to stop the Chechens from providing assistance to the Germans during the Second World War. Although the German front never made it to the border of Chechnya, an active guerrilla movement threatened to undermine the Soviet defenses of the Caucasus (noted writer Valentin Pikul' claims in his historical account Barbarossa that while the city of Grozny was being prepared for a siege in 1942, all of the air bombers stationed on the Caucasian front had to be directed at quelling the Chechen insurrection instead of fighting the German siege of Stalingrad). As well, incidents of covert German airdrops into Chechnya and interceptions of radio exchanges between German and Chechen rebels were frequent. The Chechens were allowed to return to their homeland after 1956 during the de-Stalinization which occurred under Nikita Khrushchev.

The russification policies towards Chechens continued after 1956, with Russian required in most aspects of life and for advancement in the Soviet system. Despite this some ethnic Chechens managed to achieve some top positions in the USSR (most notable Ruslan Khasbulatov (speaker of Soviet Supreme Soviet), Dzhokhar Dudaev (Soviet general), Doku Zavgaev (chairman of Chechen-Ingush ASSR), and Aslambek Aslakhanov (Soviet/Russian lawmaker). The Chechens remained peaceful and relatively loyal to the state until the introduction of Glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s.
"

[HuckleB]

39. Oh brother.

Thanks for the propaganda. It's time for you to spend some time with the full history, rather than the condensed version.

There is no context, and no discussion of the size of that so-called guerrilla movement that led to complete and total ethnic cleansing.

[mod mom]

18. These are the terrorists our efforts should be focused on instead of

waging immoral wars based on lies. The sheeple who think we are safer with the Neocons are delusional. Neocons caused the proliferation of terrorism and have made our country weaker by straining the military, and national guard for their warped agenda.

[anotherdrew]

21. oh no... the US likes these terrorists, since Russia is so so mean to them

and has been for so long they just have to break away from russia now... bullshit, these people were put up to this a long time ago.. the fight has gone on for too long and now there is a second if not third generation who have likely forgot what they started killing for in the first place. It's at best a civil war, and Russia must end it.

[HuckleB]

46. Alas,

immoral wars based on lies are what led to the vacuum that led to the development of terrorist groups such as these. The US is not the only nation on earth to go to war based on lies and racism.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. Why hurt children?

This is something I will never understand. :cry:

[brentspeak]

30. Why hurt anyone?

Terrorists are terrorists are terrorists.

[anotherdrew]

25. please read the histroy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechnyan

[HuckleB]

50. Indeed, but not the Reader's Digest version.

For starters...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590332385/qid=1129306925/sr=1-20/ref=sr_1_20/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/1843311658/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-5537002-9030457?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802714048/qid=/sr=/ref=cm_lm_asin/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312308531/qid=1129306925/sr=5-1/ref=cm_lm_asin/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393326411/ref=pd_sim_b_4/002-5537002-9030457?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595326862/qid=1129306925/sr=5-1/ref=cm_lm_asin/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0814731325/qid=1129306925/sr=1-16/ref=sr_1_16/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393327329/qid=1129306731/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1586480448/ref=reg_hu-wl_mrai-recs/002-5537002-9030457?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1860468977/qid=1129306168/sr=8-7/ref=pd_bbs_7/002-5537002-9030457?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. The school does not seem to have been the real target

but caught in an attack on Russian officials.

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.

A local Interior Ministry source told Itar-Tass that rebels launched a "carefully planned" simultaneous attack on police stations, security forces, military and drugs-control offices and the airport.

"All hell broke loose, and the impression was that there was shooting everywhere," a resident told Reuters news agency.

A school was also caught up in the running gun-battles, as black smoke billowed across the city.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4337100.stm

[HuckleB]

31. The Forbes piece appears to be MSM propaganda.

60 killed in city battle:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1591275,00.html

Hardline policy fails to halt extremism:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1591858,00.html

[HuckleB]

44. Musa Shanib in the Caucasus: a political odyssey

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-caucasus/shanib_2914.jsp

"...

What a subject for a biography! And Georgi Derluguian has written it – and so much more – in his book Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Derluguian is a native of the north Caucasus, an Armenian born in the Krasnodar region, and now teaches sociology at Northwestern University in Chicago. He became fascinated by Shanib(ov) when he met him several years ago and his evolution from loyal Komsomol youth leader into 1970s dissident into nationalist demagogue. He realised what an interesting man he had before him when he learned of Shanib’s admiration for the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography (University of Chicago Press, 2005) is an extraordinary book by any standards. My only quarrel with it is the title, which will deter many readers unfamiliar with the name Bourdieu and miss out on the many riches here available to the non-specialist.

What the author has written is no less than a theoretical and empirical explanation of the evolution of late Soviet and early post-Soviet society that spins out a highly sophisticated explanation of how the Soviet Union broke up and why nationalist conflict broke out in the Caucasus. He does this as a sociologist but relying on the kind of detailed on-the-ground research worthy of the best journalists. Shanib’s evolution is the vehicle by which this story is told from the half-century from the end of the Stalin period to the present day.

To summarise the book’s complex arguments is impossible, but its main critical thrust presents a fresh understanding of the decay of the Soviet Union and what came after.


..."

[LatinoSocialist]

49. i call 50 people killed by poison gas

anyone wants to take the bet?