Related: 50 rebels killed in southern Russia clash
Militants hold hostages in Southern Russian city  

Russian Interior Ministry soldiers take up a position at the outskirts of Nalchik, southern Russia Thursday, Oct. 13, 2005 in this image taken from television. Militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in one of the main cities in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region on Thursday, sparking battles involving heavy-arms fire and explosions that forced the evacuation of schools and left corpses lying in the streets. Chechen rebel forces took responsibility for the attack. (Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)

    MOSCOW, Oct. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Law-enforcement department and police have been given strict orders to not allow a single militant escape from the southern Russian city of Nalchik and to shoot to kill if needed, Russia's First Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said on Thursday.

    "The city has been surrounded by tight security cordons. Not a single car or suburban commuter train will be let out of the city unexamined," Chekalin was quoted by the Itar-Tass as saying.

    According to him, 50 field cordons have been deployed and the capital of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic Nalchik divided into sectors, each of them is being searched by mobile groups.

    "It is important to find militants who have gone into hiding and the bodies of killed militants, too," Chekalin said.

    Earlier in the day, a group of some 100 militants had attacked on several police stations , and a number of key facilities, including the Interior Ministry and the regional Federal Security Service department, Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov said.

    The attacks were launched by Wahhabis Anzor Astemirov and Iless Gorchkhanov, who are wanted for masterminding the attack on the city drug control office last December, the report cited Kolesnikov as saying.

    The latest data from Kabardino-Balkarian security services saidthat 61 militants were killed in battles in Nalchik on Thursday.

    "We are still collecting bodies, but, by our estimates at this hour, 61 militants have been killed and another 17 were arrested," Kabardino-Balkarian Interior Minister Khachim Shogenov told Interfax on Thursday evening.

    Some earlier reports said that about 50 militants have been killed, about 12 have been detained, and at least 20 police and 12 civilians died in the operation.

    The number of casualties in the operation may be increase. Enditem