Gunmen Kill 4, Seize Weapons in Russia's Caucasus

[maddezmom]

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Islamic militants killed four anti-drugs unit members and seized more than 170 submachine guns and pistols on Tuesday in an attack on the unit's offices in Russia's volatile Caucasus region.



A militant Islamist group, calling itself "Yarmuk," claimed responsibility for the attack, branding the unit a "criminal organization" that had caused people to become drug addicts.


The gunmen set fire to the building after stealing 36 submachine guns, 136 pistols and a large amount of ammunition during the night-time attack in Nalchik, capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria region, local media reported.


"The attackers handcuffed them (the four members of staff), took them into the basement of the state drug-control building and shot them there," Interfax news agency quoted a spokeswoman for the region's drugs control department as saying.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=7&u=/nm/20041214/wl_nm/crime_russia_dc

[maddezmom]

1. Bolshevik Party Seizes Moscow Building

MOSCOW - Members of a radical, right-wing political party briefly seized a Kremlin-controlled building Tuesday in downtown Moscow to demonstrate against President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), a security official said.



About 40 members of the National Bolshevik Party entered the presidential information administration building around noon and blockaded themselves in a room. Party members could be seen through windows holding up the party's red-and-white, hammer-and-sickle flags along with a black banner reading: "Putin, quit your job."


The Kremlin security press service said the participants were later detained and questioned by police.


Alexander Averin, a spokesman for the party, told the Interfax news agency that the blockade was designed to protest recent decisions by Putin to overhaul regional legislative elections and to streamline the country's system of giving benefits to veterans, the elderly and the disabled.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=6&u=/ap/20041214/ap_on_re_eu/russia_building_seizure

[bemildred]

2. West of N. Ossetia, the violence just keeps spreading. nt

[DoNotRefill]

3. If criminals want guns...

they'll find a way to get them.