2005 Nalchik raid

Outbreak of fighting According to the Russian news source Agentura, fighting began about 9 AM on the morning of 13 October,. The initial attack included nine targets: At 1:45, according to an FSB source cited by Echo of Moscow, attackers attempted to seize an FSB building but were repelled. A rebel sniper killed one FSB worker and wounded four, and the building was seriously damaged and caught fire. MSNBC also described the conditions in central Nalchik on the next morning: Bloodied corpses still lay in the streets on Friday. One was near the entrance to police station No. 2 and the regional anti-terrorist center, where most of the windows had been blown out and even tramway lines outside had been brought down. Seven more bodies were sprawled across the street, most with horrific head wounds. Heavily armed police poked and kicked at the bodies, presumably those of militants, all clad in tracksuits and running shoes. Outside the local Federal Security Service building, several heavily armed officers picked gingerly through a black backpack that had apparently belonged to a militant, pulling out a candy bar, a bottle of water and a black T-shirt. By midday on 14 October, the head of the regional government Gennady Gubin, told Interfax that "all points of rebel resistance have been suppressed and hostages freed. Now the security forces are conducting a sweep of the city to find terrorists who are hiding." The Russian government had deployed 1,500 regular troops and 500 special forces troops to Nalchik to regain government control of the city. ==Aftermath==

Identity and number of attackers There was an uncertainty about the size of the terrorists force. Russian sources put the figure at between 80 and 300, while Basayev claimed that 217 fighters had been involved. Police told the news agency TASS that the attackers had operated in 10 mobile groups, each with a different set of targets. MSNBC reported Kommersant reported on 28 October 2006, citing detainees' lawyers, that the charges against 13 of them had been dropped because of an amnesty, while the pre-trial detention period for the remaining 56 was extended to April 2007. Another 39 people accused of involvement in the raid remained at large. On 27 June 2006, the ex-Guantanamo prisoner, Ruslan Odizhev, a lifelong friend of Anzor Astemirov and suspected of leading the attack on Omon headquarters, was killed in the centre of Nalchik, in an apartment block on Schokenzukov Prospekt, facing the local (official) mosque, while resisting arrest, together with another suspect, Anzor Tengizov. Claim of responsibility After the raid, Arsen Kanokov, the newly appointed president of the KBR, admitted publicly that it could have been triggered at least in part by brutal crackdowns by local police. The Nalchik attack came just over a year after the Beslan school hostage crisis, for which Basayev also claimed responsibility. An Ingush militant, Ilias Gorchkhanov, leader of the Ingush Jamaat, was said to have been one of the attack's commanders on the ground. The trial proper began in March 2009 in a specially constructed and heavily guarded building in Nalchik and continued as of June 2011. Fifty-eight men are being prosecuted, one of the original 59 accused having died in custody in 2008. The men are indicted on a range of charges including murder, hostage-taking, terrorism and illegal possession of weapons. Nine of the men admit illegal possession of arms, one admits being part of a "criminal armed group" and one has admitted "partial guilt". The rest deny all charges. During hearings the defendants are held in four or five groups in metal cages and they address the court via microphones placed at the front of each cage. Several of the men on trial have claimed they were tortured in custody. The defendants have used court hearings to threaten their enemies in the police and security forces. In February 2011, one of the accused said that Khachim Shogenov, the former interior minister of Kabardino-Balkaria, should be called to give evidence "while he was still alive." He added: "Such people will be killed in this republic. By the time this process ends, praise be to Allah, they will all be destroyed." ==Casualties==

The Russian government and the terrorists have published significantly different casualty figures. According to the Russian officials, 89 attackers were killed and 36 captured, while 35 federal servicemen and 14 civilians also died. At 15:40 GMT, CNN reported that 97 people were hospitalized in connection with the attack, according to the Russian Health Ministry. According to the Basayev's later statement, 37 attackers died in the operation. The rebels put the federal losses at over 300 dead and wounded. In his statement, Basayev blamed guerrilla casualties on the information leak before the operation. The relatives argue that the decision, taken by one of investigators for the Southern Federal District, Aleksei Savrulin, and former Deputy Prosecutor for the Southern Federal District Nikolai Shepel, was unlawful. ==Allegations by the Russian government==

Alleged connections with international terrorism On 20 October 2005 Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Nikolai Shepel, stated that the attack was organized by "International Terrorist Organizations", that also previously organized the Beslan school hostage crisis, raid on Ingushetia, and the attack on Gosnarkocontrol (drug control agency) in Kabardino-Balkaria. The Duma deputy from Chechnya Akhmar Zavgayev also blamed international terrorists for the attack. Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Rasul Kudayev was arrested in Nalchik for allegedly taking part in the preparation of the attack, and participation in the attack itself (taking the road police post in Khasanya suburb of Nalchik). According to same source Rasul Kudayev pretends being at home at the time of the incident, which can be witnessed (according to his brother) by relatives, neighbours, journalists, and his lawyer. It was reported that the militants may have planned to overrun the city's airport and use the aircraft there in suicide attacks similar to the 11 September attacks. Alleged financing by foreign intelligence agencies and NGOs The deputy head of the Kabardino-Balkaria Interior Ministry's anti-organized crime department, Albert Sizhazhev, claimed on 14 February 2006, that the attack in Nalchik was financed by foreign intelligence agencies. According to NTV, Sizhazhev said the attack was organized by "ringleaders of the bandit underground of Kabardino-Balkaria" who "had the powerful financial support of foreign special services." According to ITAR-TASS, the head of the religious affairs department of Kabardino-Balkaria's Ministry of Culture, Dzhambulat Gergokov, claimed that the "bandit underground" in the republic was funded via non-governmental organizations working in Chechnya. On 17 October 2006, deputy Interior Minister of Russia Arkady Yedelev was quoted by RIA Novosti saying about Anzor Astemirov, one of the organizers of the militant attack: I will put it straight, that people like [Anzor] Astemirov are linked to the secret services of some countries that are planning blitzkriegs in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and the South Caucasus, and are pursuing a militant escalation on our territory to transfer some of their gunmen from Iraq to Russia. Yedelev's allegations were repeated by him on 4 June 2007. He did not identify any countries. ==See also==