A total of 12 civilians, 12 policemen and about 20 armed men have been killed during attacks by Chechen men on police and army buildings in the southern Russian town of Nalchik.

The firefight on Thursday is still going in Nalchik, the main city of the southern Russian region of Kabardino-Balkariya, including in a school near a police station.

Central Nalchik has been sealed off and police cars equipped with loudspeakers are circulating in the area, broadcasting messages to local residents to evacuate the quarter.

Nalchik is located some 150km west of the Grozny, the capital of the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Hostages seized

The attackers have taken hostages in a police station which they stormed, a senior official said on Thursday.

"There are two hotspots where there are organised clashes. One is the No 3 police precinct, where unfortunately there are hostages," Dmitry Kozak, the Kremlin's envoy to southern Russia, said on state television.

"An operation is now under way (to free the hostages)," he said.

Earlier, Interfax news agency said the group staged a wave of simultaneous attacks on strategic buildings housing Russian forces in Nalchik on Thursday.

Chechen armed group took responsibility for the attack.

The Kavkaz-Center Web, considered a voice for fighters loyal to Chechen commander Shamil Basayev, said it had received a short message claiming responsibility on behalf of the so-called Caucasus Front, which it said was part of the Chechen separatist armed forces and which includes Yarmuk, an armed group based in Kabardino-Balkariya.

RIA Novosti agency later quoted a regional security source as saying the attacks had been beaten off and a hunt was under way to track down the armed gangs responsible.

The Interfax news agency reported that security forces also repelled an attack against the city's airport.

At least three suspected attackers were killed, a duty officer at the southern Russian district office of the Interior Ministry said on customary condition of anonymity. 

He said the fighting began after police in Nalchik received an anonymous telephoned tip that a group of about 10 armed men had entered the city, and police and security forces launched a special operation to capture them.

A source in the Kabardino-Balkariya police department said on condition of anonymity that three police units in the city had been attacked by unknown assailants on Thursday morning.

Intense shooting

A policeman was wounded in the fighting, said Marina Kyasova, a spokesman for the Kabardino-Balkariya regional office of the ministry.

Intense shooting from automatic rifles and grenade-launchers and could be heard in the centre of the city. The North Caucasus department on fighting terrorism and city police unit No 2 are located behind School No 5.

Interfax reported that armed men had launched simultaneous attacks on the regional headquarters of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security.

It said that federal forces had surrounded Nalchik.

Caucasus front

Chechen leader Abdul-Khalid Sadulayev has tried to set up what he calls a "Caucasus front" since he took over the leadership of the movement in March, and said attacks in other Muslim regions would be coordinated with those by his own forces.

The attack on Nalchik is also reminiscent of an operation in June 2004 when pro-Chechen fighters attacked police buildings in Nazran and effectively seized control of Ingushetia - near Kabardino-Balkaria - for several hours.

About 60 people, many of them police, were killed in that attack.

Past attacks

Kabardino-Balkariya, along with other southern Russian regions, has seen a rise in armed movements and violence targeting police, soldiers and other law-enforcement officials in recent years linked to the festering decade-old guerrilla conflict in breakaway Chechnya.

In December, armed men raided the regional branch of the federal Drug Control Agency in Nalchik, killing four employees, looting an arsenal and setting the office ablaze.

PHOTO CAPTION

Burnt cars stand in front of a police station in downtown Nalchik, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005 in this image taken from television. (AP)