RUSSIAN security forces killed 23 militants and freed several hostages in the spa town of Nalchik yesterday, crushing the last remnants of a dramatic assault by Chechen rebels.

Special forces stormed a police station where eight militants were holed up, killing them all and rescuing five hostages in an early-morning operation the day after the rebels attacked. Elite troops then smashed an armoured personnel carrier through the wall of a souvenir shop and fired grenades through a window before killing three militants inside and freeing their two hostages.

In the early afternoon, security forces killed the last 12 militants holding out in the local prison headquarters in the capital of the republic of Kabardino-Balkariya, near Chechnya.

Russian officials declared that the city was back under control, more than 30 hours after 150 rebels launched simultaneous attacks on police stations, security service offices and the local airport.

At least 108 people were killed, including 72 rebels, 24 police officers and 12 civilians, in the most audacious attack by Chechen militants since last year’s Beslan school siege.

The streets of Nalchik were deserted yesterday apart from security forces and a few people burying the dead or searching for wounded relatives.

President Putin, who has been widely criticised over his handling of Beslan, praised police and troops for their swift response to Thursday’s attack.

“It’s a bad thing that raids like this are still possible. It is tragic that we should lose police and civilian lives,” he said.

“But it’s a good thing that this time, all law enforcement agencies and the security agencies worked well, efficiently, rigorously. And we’ll continue to act in this manner in relation to anybody who takes up arms and threatens the lives or our citizens and the integrity of the Russian State.”

However, the Kremlin faced an outcry over why security services had been unable to prevent the decade-long war in Chechnya from spilling into yet another North Caucasus republic.

“A second Caucasian front: Security services have again failed to prevent an attack against a city,” said the daily Novye Izvestia.

Izvestia, another daily, said: “The events in Nalchik demonstrated with new, shocking force the fragility of what the authorities .. . have been calling ‘peace’.”

Especially alarming was the revelation that most of the rebels were Nalchik residents who had joined an Islamic extremist organisation called Yarmuk.

Regional experts said that many young locals had joined Yarmuk because of the local government’s corruption and heavy-handed attempts to crush Islamic extremism.

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