More Than 200 Said Killed in Russia
Siege
Friday, September 03, 2004
BESLAN, Russia — More than 200 people were dead after a
three-day-long hostage standoff at a school in southern Russia (search), officials said
Friday.
Regional health officials told the Interfax news agency the death
toll had topped 200. Earlier in the day officials had warned that the number
could exceed 150.
The terrorists who besieged the school on Wednesday finally ceased
fighting with security forces on Friday. The hostage takers, who had been
demanding independence for Chechnya (search), had been trading
fire from the school basement and a nearby house after Russian commandos
stormed the building. After about 12 hours, the Russian government said
resistance had ended, though four others were still being sought. There were
also reports that three arrests.
Emergency Situations Ministry officials said 704 people were
hospitalized, including 259 children. Many were badly burned.
Officials said security forces had not planned to assault the
school, where the militants had been holding hostages — up to 1,500 of them,
according to one freed captive — in the gymnasium since Wednesday morning. But the
troops' hand was forced when the militants set off explosions and began
shooting Friday afternoon, officials said.
Some of the hostages were wounded or killed when terrorists fired
on those who were fleeing and Russian forces fired back.
Several of the hostage-takers fled following the raid. Many may
have changed out of their militants gear into civilian clothing, further
complicating Russian forces' efforts to hunt them down.
Troops were engaged in "fierce fighting" for hours with
militants, who still held some hostages, said Valery Andreyev, the regional
Federal Security Service chief. Three militants reportedly barricaded
themselves in the basement.
Soon after nightfall, a large explosion issued from the school, and
officials at the crisis operations center said later that resistance was over.
They said four militants remained at large, but it was not clear if they held
any more hostages. Channel One TV reported three militants were arrested after
trying to escape in civilian dress.
Officials at the crisis headquarters said 95 victims have been
identified so far. Health Ministry officials said the total death toll was more
than 200, the Interfax news agency reported.
Officials also told FOX News that 10 of the 20 terrorists killed by
Russian soldiers were "Arab mercenaries."
Jihadists from the Middle East have joined the Chechen uprising
since it began after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, but their numbers
have always been small, according to Alexei Malashenko at the Carnegie
Moscow Center (search). Chechen fighters,
who come from a less restrictive Muslim tradition, have also tended to chafe
under the Arab fighters' extremism.
Unprecedented
Act
The hostage-taking was an unprecedented event in the region,
according to a FOX News military analyst.
"The is a whole new escalation," said Air Force
Lieutenant General (Ret.) Tom McInerney.
McInerney cautioned against criticizing Russia's security forces
for their handling of the standoff.
"You can't do a pinpoint strike. We have never seen such a
large number of hostages taken by terrorists [in this region] before."
McInerney also said Washington had reason for alarm. "The
question is whether it's going to roll West into Europe and into our own
country," he said.
Commandos had stormed the Beslan school earlier Friday and battled
terrorists holding hundreds of hostages as crying children — some naked and
covered in blood — fled through explosions and gunfire.
The captives were taken by heavily armed terrorists who were making
a series of demands involving the war-torn region of Chechnya, including a
request that Russian troops leave the area.
A hostage who escaped told Associated Press Television News that
the militants numbered 28, including women wearing camouflage uniforms. The
hostage, who identified himself only as Teimuraz, said the militants began
wiring the school with explosives as soon as they took control.
The hostage standoff began when the terrorists, some with
explosives strapped to their bodies, stormed the school Wednesday morning.
The terrorists kept the hostages in a sweltering gymnasium,
refusing to let in food or water.
"They didn't let me go to the toilet for three days, not once.
They never let me drink or go to the toilet," Teimuraz told APTN.
The children who were rescued drank eagerly from bottles of water
given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were only partly
clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium.
"I am helping you," a man dressed in camouflage told a
crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying "It's all
right. It's all right."
About a dozen hostage-takers escaped, with the Interfax new agency
reporting that they split into three groups to blend in with the hostages and
took refuge in a home nearby. Tank fire was heard from the area of the house,
Interfax said, and gunfire rang out through the town for hours.
The White House branded the hostage-taking "barbaric" and
"despicable," and said responsibility for dozens of lost lives rests
with the terrorists.
"The United States stands side by side with Russia in our
global fight against terrorism," spokesman Scott McClellan said.
President Bush was briefed on developments in Russia Friday morning
before a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He did not talk about the standoff
during his speech.
Who Are the
Terrorists?
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking at the Beslan
(search) school, but
Alexander Dzasokhov — the president of the North Ossetia (search) region, where the
school is located — said the terrorists had demanded independence for the
nearby war-torn region of Chechnya. It was the first official word connecting
the hostage-taking to Russia's conflict with the mostly Muslim region.
Insurgents fought an earlier war for Chechen independence, a
conflict that ended in stalemate. In the years since, the rebels and their
sympathizers have increasingly taken to assaults and attacks outside the tiny
republic.
Some Arab fighters have joined the Chechen militants, including
rebel commander Abu Walid, a zealously Muslim Saudi-born warrior, and Omar Ibn
al-Khattab — now dead — another Saudi-born militant who joined top rebel
warlord Shamil Basayev in 1999 raids in Dagestan that helped prompt the current
Chechen war.
Their participation has bolstered President Vladimir Putin's case
that Russia's campaign in Chechnya is part of a war on international terrorism.
Putin said Tuesday that the claim, while unconfirmed, was the
latest demonstration of links between Chechen militants and international
terrorists.
"If a terrorist organization claimed responsibility for this,
and it is linked to Al Qaeda, then this confirms a link between certain forces
operating on the territory of Chechnya and international terrorism," he
said.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there
isn't evidence that Al Qaeda is involved, but the Chechen rebels have been
linked to the Muslim extremist group in the past and the new interest in
aviation and increasing sophistication of attacks gives reason to be
suspicious.
"It can't be ruled out, but there isn't any evidence of
connections," the official said.
Homicide bombers are a new phenomenon for Russia, but hostage-taking
raids have been part of the militant strategy since shortly after Russian
forces rolled into the region in 1994 in a bid to crush the separatist
government of Dzhokhar Dudayev.
In the last two weeks Russia has been hit with a series of deadly
attacks.
A suspected Chechen homicide bomber blew herself up Tuesday outside
a Moscow subway station, killing nine people and wounding dozens. She was
believed to have been one of the region's "black widows" — Chechen
female homicide bombers who have caused carnage in Russia to avenge husbands or
male relatives lost in the deadly conflict.
And just over a week ago, 90 people died in two plane crashes that
are suspected to have been blown up by bombers also linked to Chechnya. Each
plane carried one woman passenger who purchased her ticket under a Chechen name
and was never identified or claimed by relatives.
Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the region
in the past decade prompted forceful Russian rescue operations that led to many
deaths. The most recent, the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, ended after a
knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing
almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.
Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said the attackers might be
from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and
Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were
believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected
of participating in the Ingushetia violence.
"They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless
enemy," said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations.
"I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to
give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request."
FOX News' Dana Lewis and The Associated Press contributed to this report.