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Islamic Militants Attack Grozny, Chechnya’s Capital, Leaving 19 Dead Islamic Militants Wage Fierce Attack on Grozny, Chechnya’s Capital
(about 3 hours later)
MOSCOW — Islamic militants infiltrated Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, overnight and early Thursday, seizing buildings and opening fire on security forces in a gun battle that killed 10 police officers and nine militants, officials said. The attack came just hours before President Vladimir V. Putin delivered a state of the nation speech in Moscow, in which he made only a passing reference to the violence. MOSCOW — A fierce gun battle between Islamist militants and government security forces paralyzed the center of the Chechen capital, Grozny, overnight Thursday, leaving some 19 people dead and embarrassing President Vladimir V. Putin just hours before he delivered his state-of-the-nation speech in Moscow.
The Russian state news media reported that the militants had seized an office building, which was then recaptured by security forces, and a school. Terrified residents of Grozny said they heard loud explosions and saw armed gunmen roaming the streets. Residents of Grozny reached by telephone said there seemed to be a wide list of targets and significant violence downtown. As dawn broke, smoke was rising from several locations, they said. Kheda Saratova, a human-rights activist, said in a telephone interview that gunfire broke out around 1 a.m. and continued through the morning.
Andrey Chatsky, a spokesman for Russia’s National Antiterrorist Committee, confirmed in a statement broadcast on Russian television that 10 police officers had been killed and 28 injured in the clashes. It was the most violent, brazen attack linked to militant activity in the region in months. There was some speculation among analysts and on social media that the assault was carried out by fighters linked to the Islamic State or other radical groups fighting in Syria. If so, it would be the first such attack inside Russia.
Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, said in a statement posted on his website, “We have the corpses of nine militants.” Earlier, he told the news agency Interfax that the office building, called the House of Publishing and used by newspapers and other media, had been recaptured by morning, and that all seven militants inside had been killed. Chechen fighters in Syria have threatened to carry out such attacks in response to Moscow’s unalloyed support for the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
Mr. Kadyrov did not say whether there were any civilian casualties. The Interior Ministry for the Chechen Republic did not answer telephone calls on Thursday evening. Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the Kremlin ally who runs Chechnya, sought to play down the violence, attending Mr. Putin’s speech in Moscow and claiming that the reconstruction of the damaged buildings had already begun.
The attack ended a period of relative stability in Chechnya and other largely Muslim regions of southern Russia. In his speech, Mr. Putin said Russia was able to face the threat from terrorist attacks like the one in Grozny. “When this all started,” Mr. Kadyrov told reporters at the Kremlin, “I flew home, organized a special operation, killed the devils, held a meeting, gathered the staff needed to restore the damaged building and made it back in time to listen to the address of our national leader.” He was seen during the speech checking his telephone intently.
Residents of Grozny reached by telephone said the militants had a wider list of targets, and spoke of broader mayhem in the city. Mr. Putin also made a passing reference to the attack, first suggesting that the West was behind the long history of terrorist insurgency in the restive Caucasus Mountains because it wanted to break up Russia, just as it had Yugoslavia.
As dawn broke, smoke was rising from several locations, they said. “Now these ‘insurgents’ showed themselves again in Chechnya,” Mr. Putin said. “I am sure the local guys, local law enforcement bodies, will cope with it properly. They are working now to liquidate a new terrorist raid.”
“Oh God,” one man said in a video posted online, which shows shaky, silhouetted figures of armed men. “Fighters are on the streets.” In a further attempt to reassure the public, state television showed Mr. Putin in his office meeting with Mr. Kadyrov. The Chechen leader assured the president that Grozny was under control, describing the operations there, while Mr. Putin instructed that the families of the dead government troops should be comforted.
The Interfax report quoted Mr. Kadyrov as saying that civilian victims of the violence would be compensated, without indicating how many had been wounded or killed, or whether the gunmen had taken hostages. Mr. Putin cemented his popularity after first assuming power in 2000 by ending a protracted war in Chechnya. Mr. Kadyrov, while often accused of human rights violations, pushed the militants out of Chechnya itself into neighboring republics, where the level of attacks rose. Chechnya has remained relatively calm.
Fighting at a nearby school, School No. 20, where militants had holed up overnight, had subsided by Thursday evening Mr. Kadyrov said. Both the attack and the brewing economic crisis seemed to raise simultaneous questions about the signature achievements of Mr. Putin’s presidency: ending the Chechen war and obtaining unprecedented prosperity for many Russians.
On his Instagram account, Mr. Kadyrov advised residents of neighborhoods in the center of the city to remain at home and away from windows. Most of the violence in the Caucasus goes unnoticed because it takes place outside major urban centers. But Caucasian Knot, an authoritative website that tracks events in the region, said that 290 people had been killed and 144 wounded in fighting scattered through the Caucasus this year through the end of November.
Residents described explosions from heavy weapons, either tanks or artillery, in several parts of the city. Kheda Saratova, a human-rights activist, said in a telephone interview that gunfire broke out around 1 a.m. and continued through the morning. Thursday’s attack was the third major assault this year, it said, following a suicide bombing in Grozny on Oct. 5 that killed five people and the destruction of a government armored personnel carrier by a land mine in April in which four soldiers were killed and seven wounded.
Varvara Pakhomenko, an independent analyst of the region, said residents were reporting gunfire in many locations. On Thursday, militants traveling in three cars infiltrated the capital around 1 a.m., killing three traffic police officers at a checkpoint and then occupying the 10-story House of Publishing at the center of the city, according to a statement by the National Antiterrorist Committee. Six of the gunmen were killed by security officers inside the building, which was gutted by fire that spread to a nearby market, it said.
Gunfire broke out near Rosa Luxemburg Street, a thoroughfare in the city that runs parallel to Vladimir Putin Street, in addition to the House of Publishing and School No. 20, she said. The rest of the attackers were found near the House of Publishing in School No. 20, where fighting continued into Thursday, the statement said. Neither teachers nor students were at the school when it was seized, according to Russian news reports.
“This could be a symbolic attack to show they can still organize something significant,” Ms. Pakhomenko said, referring to the Islamic militants. “They need new supporters and new fighters.” Many Muslims from Chechnya and Dagestan, another republic in southern Russia, have gone to to Syria to join the fight against President Bashar al-Assad. Ten police officers and nine militants were killed, Russian and Chechen government officials said. Another 28 police officers were injured, Andrey Chatsky, a spokesman for the antiterrorist committee, said in a statement broadcast on Russian television that also confirmed the police death toll.
Law enforcement agents eliminated at least nine militants, Mr. Kadyrov said in a statement posted on his website, noting, “We have the corpses.” He said the antiterrorist operation was over. He did not mention civilian casualties, and the Interior Ministry for the Chechen Republic did not answer telephone calls on Thursday evening.
The Interfax news agency quoted Mr. Kadyrov as saying that civilian victims of the violence would be compensated. As the fighting continued early Thursday, he used social media accounts to advise downtown residents to remain at home and away from windows.
There was little news of the attack on Russian state television before Mr. Putin’s speech, but once he mentioned it the clashes received wider coverage. Video footage was shown of security officers blasting the three-story school with grenade launchers and automatic weapons fire.
Mr. Kadyrov suggested that the militants were connected to Doku Umarov, the longtime leader of the Chechen militants who was killed last year. Attacks the group threatened against the Sochi Olympics last February never materialized.
Islamic fighters in southern Russia are organized as the Caucasus Emirate, a religiously motivated and pan-Caucasian movement that evolved from the initial Chechen nationalist and secular struggle for independence in the 1990s. Thursday is close to the 20th anniversary of the start of the first Chechen war.Islamic fighters in southern Russia are organized as the Caucasus Emirate, a religiously motivated and pan-Caucasian movement that evolved from the initial Chechen nationalist and secular struggle for independence in the 1990s. Thursday is close to the 20th anniversary of the start of the first Chechen war.
While many Chechens fight alongside the Islamic State, the main militant group in Iraq and Syria, the leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Aliaskhab Kebekov, is not known to have sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. “This could be a symbolic attack to show they can still organize something significant,” said Varvara Pakhomenko, an independent analyst of the region, referring to the Islamic militants. “They need new supporters and new fighters.”
In a television interview in Moscow, Mr. Kadyrov bragged that he had time to personally manage the counterterrorist operation in Grozny and still attend Mr. Putin’s speech. Dmitry Trenin, the head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in a Twitter post, “The night attack in Grozny looks senseless, except as an attempt to embarrass Putin hours before his annual address to parliament.” He and others speculated that it might be the handiwork of the Islamic State.
“When this all started,” he said, “I flew home, held a special operation, killed the devils, held a meeting, gathered the staff for restoring the damaged building and made it in time to listen to the address of our national leader, the president, Commander in Chief Vladimir Putin.” The new leader of the Caucasus Emirate, Aliaskhab Kebekov, has not publicly sworn allegiance to the Islamic state. Yet, many Muslims from Chechnya and Dagestan, another republic in southern Russia, have gone to Syria to join the fight against President Assad.
Videos and news reports that have emerged since August cite “Omar the Chechen,” the pseudonym for Tarkhan Batirashvili, a senior Islamic State commander from the Caucuses, as telling his father that Russia was the next target after Iraq.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll come home and show the Russians,’ ” Temur Batirashvili, the militant’s father, told Bloomberg News from his home in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, on the Chechen border. “I have many thousands following me now and I’ll get more. We’ll have our revenge against Russia.”
In one online video, an unidentified fighter sitting in a mud-spattered sedan says he would like to “convey a message to Putin.”
“These are the Russian planes that you sent to Bashar,” the man says, referring to President Assad. “Allah willing, we will take them back to your own turf and liberate Chechnya and the Caucasus.”
“The Islamic State is here to stay,” he said. “Your throne is being threatened by us.”