2005 Nalchik raid The 2005 Nalchik attack was a raid by a large group of militants on Nalchik ( pop . 250 , 000 ) , in the Kabardino - Balkar Republic ( KBR ) of southern Russia , on 13 October 2005 . A number of buildings associated with the Russian security forces were targeted . More than 100 people ( 142 according to official tallies ) , including at least 14 civilians , were reported to have been killed during the ensuing shooting , which continued into the next day . Many other people were wounded . 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 attack . Outbreak of fighting . According to the Russian news source Agentura , fighting began about 9 AM on the morning of 13 October , while a statement made by Shamil Basayev on the Kavkaz Center website puts the exact time at 9 : 14 . The initial attack included nine targets : Soon after , a gun store called Arsenal was robbed and three police station s were attacked as well . An attack on the KBR MVD directorate on fighting the organized crime , one more target , was prevented by pure chance . Public transport shut down across Nalchik , and sporadic fighting continued across the city until at least noon . Public announcements and prolongation of the conflict . At 1 : 20 pm , the President of Russia ' s Kabardino - Balkaria republic Arsen Kanokov , announced on Echo of Moscow that several of the attackers been taken alive . He also claimed that all enemy combatants seized so far were members of a radical Islamist group known as Yarmuk Jamaat . Radio Free Europe speculated that the name of this group may be a reference to a 7th - century battle in which Arab forces defeated a Byzantine army . 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 . At 2 : 30 , a group of policemen located in a building surrounded by attackers managed to free themselves . Agentura also reports that at this time the first communications from the attackers were published on the kavkazcenter website . At 3 : 00 RIA Novosti announced , quoting Interior Minister Alexander Alexeyevich Chekalin , that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered a full blockade of Nalchik . Chekalin announced that the Interior Ministry , Defense Ministry , and FSB were conducting a joint operation , in which " anyone with weapons in his hands who displays armed opposition , should be subject to liquidation . " By the early afternoon Dmitry Kozak , Vladimir Putin ' s envoy to the Southern Federal District had arrived in Nalchik from Rostov - na - Donu , and was quoted by Radio Free Europe as saying : " The situation is normalizing . . . At least mass unrest and attacks have been put down . The bandits that today attacked the law enforcement forces have been dispersed . There remain only a few pockets of resistance — two , to be more precise . Fighting is still going on near the Interior Ministry ' s third department , where unfortunately people are being held hostage . There is an operation going there at the moment . [ But ] there are no more threats . " However , Radio Free Europe also relayed reports from Russia ' s ORT state television channel that " heavy gunfire could still be heard near the central market by mid - afternoon " and that " explosions were reported in various neighborhoods of Nalchik . " Eventually , most of surviving rebel forces retreated to the mountains . Second day . A few , mostly wounded gunmen , who were cut off by federal reinforcements , holed up with police and civilian hostages in captured buildings ( including a police station and souvenir shop ) but were killed by special forces the following day . According to the Russian officials , no hostages were killed during these final rounds of fighting . According to MSNBC , on the morning of 14 October , attackers fired on a police car in the suburb of Khasanya outside Nalchik , killing two OMON riot police officers . MSNBC also described the conditions in central Nalchik on the next morning : 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 rebels 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 rebel 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 several statements made by Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Novikov to reporters in Nalchik . In particular Novikov announced that : According to kavkazcenter , the operation had been " carried out by forces of the Kabardino - Balkarian Sector of the CF ( Caucasian Front ) and associated units from other sectors of the Caucasian Front , " with " 217 " Mujahideen " " in all participating . Asked about who might have been behind the rebel raid on Nalchik , pro - Kremlin prime minister of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov answered that Chechens had nothing to do with it : " " If Chechens had been there , then it wouldn ' t have ended so quickly . It was their own people there . It was weak guys , which is why it ended quickly – they got the better of them in two hours . " " Arrests . Following the raid , law enforcement officials detained dozens of people ; many of the detainees were reportedly tortured . At least one person was reported to have " disappeared " following the raid . Upon investigation , some of the detainees have been charged under nine articles such as terrorism , murder , armed rebellion , and infringement on the life of police officers . There was a number of documented cases of torture of detainees and the investigation was roundly criticized by Russian and international human rights groups . Mass media published photos of the detainees with traces of tortures . Those who died in the pre - trial prison were added to the number of those killed in the streets . " 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 . Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on Kavkaz Center , in which he claimed to have had " general , operational command " for the attack on government buildings . He denied that his group was involved in the attacks on stores , however . 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 . Basayev claimed that Russian security forces had been tipped off some five days before the attack , which resulted in increased security in Nalchik , but that despite increased security , the attack was not cancelled . The raid was reportedly in response to months of persecution of practising Muslims in the region , including arbitrary detention and torture by law enforcement officials , and wholesale closure of mosques . In April 2006 , asked about the upsurge in attacks in Dagestan , Ingushetia and Kabardino - Balkaria and whether fighters there coordinate their actions with the Chechen rebels , the top rebel commander Doku Umarov responded : " " We have three fronts [ outside Chechnya ] – in Kabardino - Balkaria , Ingushetia and Dagestan . Fighters in Dagestan and Kabardino - Balkaria communicate with the military amir and then through myself . They coordinate all their actions with us . ( . . . ) They are ordinary civilians who have risen against arbitrariness toward Muslims in those republics . No matter how hard we try to make them refrain from combat operations , we will not succeed . They are our brothers in faith and therefore we help them – we share our experience and direct them . God willing , we are planning to send our experienced instructors there this year . We will not leave them on their own . It is our duty to help them . " " Trial . Preliminary hearings in the prosecution of 59 men suspected of taking part in the attack began in October 2007 , but the trial was then delayed for more than a year as court officials sought to find a team of jurors . Between October 2007 and November 2008 , an estimated 1 , 200 citizens were summoned as potential members of the jury . However , more than 500 never appeared in court , and all but 13 of the remainder asked to be excused . In February 2009 , the court finally abandoned the idea of a jury trial , deciding it would go ahead with three presiding judges instead . 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 rebels 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 . Bodies controversy . According to news reports , some of the dead classified as " terrorists " were actually civilians accidentally killed in the crossfire . There were also reports that young men have simply vanished without a trace despite having no proven connection to the raid , some other allegedly detained in the day after the raid and then presented dead as the killed insurgents . Despite public protests by family members , the bodies were not released . A year later , many relatives were still demanding in vain that authorities return for proper burial the bodies of 92 men allegedly killed during the attacks ; a number of families have taken cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to petition for the return of bodies . In June 2007 the government said it had cremated the bodies of the 95 suspects on 22 June 2006 . 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 attack s similar to the 11 September attacks . However , this seems unlikely since the attack was not concentrated at the airport . The target of the airport attack was more likely the army unit stationed there . 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 service s of some countries that are planning blitzkrieg s 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 .