Russian police kill suspected militant

Man was reportedly in Nalchik attacks Shooting erupts during search of city

NALCHIK, RUSSIA—

A suspect in last week’s deadly attacks here by alleged Islamic extremists was reportedly killed in a clash with police. Meanwhile, security forces sealed off parts of this southern Russian city after shooting erupted during their search for suspected militants yesterday.

Russian news agencies reported police killed a man in Nalchik early yesterday during a document check. The ITAR- Tass news agency quoted an unidentified source in the regional Interior Ministry as saying the suspect was killed after he refused police demands to stop and tried to take a rifle from under his coat. The suspect had taken part in last week’s attacks on police and other government buildings in Nalchik, the Interfax news agency quoted Interior Ministry spokeswoman Marina Kyasova as saying. She said he’d spent the past few days in a forest outside town and tried to sneak home overnight.

Last week, militants conducted a co- ordinated series of attacks that left some 139 dead, according to official data. Two other people, a civilian and a militant, died of wounds in a Nalchik hospital yesterday, said the hospital’s chief doctor.

During yesterday’s sweep for suspects, residents were advised not to leave their homes if possible, and parents were told to take their children home from school. The regional Interior Ministry told people to carry their identity documents, to submit to body searches by authorities and to obey police commands to stop their cars immediately. An Associated Press reporter heard gunfire on the southwestern edge of town and in another district, near a police precinct.

Police yesterday cordoned off three districts near the police precinct and forbid cars and pedestrians from the zone for much of the day. Armoured personnel carriers were parked in the streets. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, the purported author of modern Russia’s worst terrorist attacks, claimed he was behind the attacks, according to a statement posted on a Chechen rebelconnected Web site.

Basayev said the attacks were carried out by militants affiliated with the Chechen rebels, but that Chechen fighters weren’t involved, indicating a more organized effort to set up militant cells throughout the region that take direction from him.

Previous statements on the Kavkaz Center website said the attacks were carried out by militants affiliated with the Chechen rebels, but yesterday’s statement was the first claim of a direct connection to Basayev. There was no way to verify the statement’s authenticity.