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At Least 85 Die in Attacks Near Chechnya
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A wealthy businessman with major interests in Moscow, Kanokov has said there must be a change in the republic's policy toward Islam. All but officially sanctioned versions of Islam were repressed under Kanokov's predecessor, Valery Kokov, who closed mosques and labeled dissidents "Wahhabis," a common Russian shorthand for Islamic extremists.
Local religious leaders had complained that the security forces were blindly targeting religious Muslims as likely extremists, spawning the very militancy the government is trying to combat.
"Under the pretext of the fight against extremism, they are prepared to include among the Wahhabis anyone who wears a beard or a veil or prays," Anas Pshikhachev, chairman of Kabardino-Balkaria's Spiritual Board of Muslims, said in the Russian magazine Kommersant-Vlast this month. "We have very cold relations with the law enforcement organs."
Kanokov's statement drew a positive response from Jammat of Kabardino-Balkaria, a Muslim group that had broken with the local Muslim establishment. Jammat said it would like Kanokov to reopen some mosques as a first step.
The possibility of some kind of accord with the republic's leadership was rejected, however, by a more radical organization, Yarmuk Jamaat, which has been linked to previous attacks in the republic and is allegedly allied with extremists in Chechnya.
"They were afraid of this dialogue," said Malashenko of the Carnegie Center. "If it takes place, the position of the extremists will be weakened. They saw the dialogue as a provocation."
Guerrillas launched almost simultaneous attacks after 9 a.m. Thursday on three police stations, the main Interior Ministry building and the local headquarters of the Federal Security Service, officials said. Residents said armed men dressed in civilian clothes suddenly appeared on downtown streets and began shooting as people scattered in panic.
Desperate parents tried to evacuate students from a school near some of the most intense fighting. A cell phone base station was blown up, police said, cutting off some communications with the city. Nalchik airport was closed after rebels failed to seize it, officials said.
