Heavily-armed gunmen in Chechnya attacked a police post early Thursday, killing several officers before storming buildings including a school in the capital Grozny.
The early morning raid came hours before President Vladimir Putin was to deliver his annual state of the nation address and weeks after a suicide blast shattered a period of relative calm in the volatile region.
One of the stormed buildings was ablaze, with thick smoke billowing into the sky from its eight storeys, as residents were told to stay indoors and security forces worked to root the gunmen out of a school nearby.
Automatic gunfire and heavy blasts rocked the city, according to video images posted by Russianmedia and on social networks.
'There are still some of them sitting in a school,' Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on the Echo of Moscow radio.
A publishing house in the capital of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya blazes after a gun fight between police and militants (Reuters/Arbi Zubairaevb)
'We have them surrounded in the school area,' he said, adding that the gunmen were 'very heavily armed', including with grenade launchers.
It was not clear how many militants were involved in the early-morning violence. Kadyrov said five or six militants have been killed.
North Caucasus Islamists, known as the Caucasus Emirate, took responsibility for the attack in a video posted on the website Kavkaz Center, saying it was revenge for 'oppression of Muslim women.'
Entities 0 Name: Chechnya Count: 3 1 Name: Kavkaz Center Count: 1 2 Name: Ramzan Kadyrov Count: 1 3 Name: Grozny Count: 1 4 Name: Moscow Count: 1 5 Name: Muslim Count: 1 6 Name: Russia Count: 1 7 Name: Vladimir Putin Count: 1 8 Name: North Caucasus Count: 1 9 Name: Russian Count: 1 10 Name: Kadyrov Count: 1 11 Name: Caucasus Emirate Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1I2GFUS Title: Gun battle leaves 9 dead in Chechen capital Description: A gun battle broke out early Thursday in the capital of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, leaving at least three traffic police officers and six gunmen dead, authorities said. The fighting punctured the patina of stability ensured by years of heavy-handed rule by a Kremlin-appointed leader.
