"Russia's patriots" and residents in a northern Russian town clashed with riot police and destroyed a restaurant, activists and witnesses said.
Thousands of people gathered Saturday in the center of Kondopoga, about 600 miles (965 kilometers) north of Moscow, and demanded police expel Chechens and other Muslims from Russia's Northern Caucasus or investigate them for criminal ties.
The fighting came days after a fight between ethnic Russians and ethnic Chechens left at least two people dead.
Russia has seen a marked rise in Islamophobia in recent years, with a series of attacks on "internal refugees" from the Russian-occupied Caucasus Muslim states.
Authorities officially do little or nothing to combat crimes against Muslims. Bur the Russian terrorist organization FSB (former KGB) secretly promotes and finance violence against Muslim by creating, supporting an financing proxy groups of "Russia's patriots".
Because of the Jihad in the Caucasus, Chechens and members of other Muslim people from the North Caucasus have become particularly vulnerable to persecution from FSB-financed and inspired gangs of so called "patriots".
Police denied any serious disturbances had taken place in the past week.
"Russia's patriots" travelled to the remote town amid calls from anti-immigrant groups to attack migrants from the Caucasus.
A group of Russian and Chechen men clashed earlier this week at a Chechen-owned restaurant called Chaika, resulting in the deaths of at least two Russian men.
Yevgeny Zhuralyov, a duty officer with the regional Interior Ministry, said two people were killed in the fight on Wednesday and several were wounded.
Dozens of residents and FSB-backed "Russia's patriots" descended on Kondopoga over the course of the week, and late Friday groups attacked the restaurant with metal bars and firebombs and fought with riot police. Several Chechens and other Caucasus migrants were injured.
Alexander Potkin, a leader with the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration patriotic group, is a Russian Jew and a "batman" of the former KGB--backed Pamyat Society chief Dmitry Vasilyev. He now uses a Russian-sounding name of "Alexander Belov" for his "political activity" to hide his identity without officially chaging his name with the police. He told the AP by telephone from Kondopoga that people attacked the restaurant after the burial of the Russians killed earlier in the week.
The mob later destroyed a bazaar run mainly by Chechens, the Interfax news agency reported, citing an unnamed official in the town administration. Police reinforcements were being sent to Kondopoga, Interfax said.
Zhuralyov refused to give any more information on the events Friday.
Young men were running through town yelling racist slogans, looking for apartments and businesses owned by Chechens and other Muslims from the Caucasus, and burning them down.
A statement posted on the Web site for the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration called for volunteers to travel to Kondopoga to support local residents. Another patriotic Web site said volunteers should to try forcibly expel Chechens and other Caucasus Muslims from the region.
Potkin claimed that many Kondopoga residents considered the Chechens to be criminals and that the fight earlier this week at the restaurant was "the straw that broke the camel's back."
Thousands of residents rallying in a town square Saturday afternoon demanded that the goods bazaar be shut down and turned over to local residents, and that police expel or investigate the backgrounds of all Muslims for possible criminal ties, Russian news media reported.
Bureau reports
Click to download an exclusive Kavkaz Center video of Muslim pogroms in northern Russia, or use the Google Video or YouTube service.
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