Bloody end to Russia school siege

[Pikache]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3624024.stm

At least 100 bodies have reportedly been found in a school in southern Russia where Chechen separatists had been holding hundreds of hostages.
Heavy gunfire and loud explosions were heard throughout the morning as Russian troops stormed the school, in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia.

There is confusion as to why the Russian forces went in, as the operation seems to have been unplanned.

Hundreds of children were freed in the seizure, though some are badly injured.

Russian officials confirmed that some dead had been found inside the school. Many of them are thought to have died when part of the school's roof collapsed.

More than 400 people were injured.


Click here to see the layout of the school
The US White House condemned the hostage-taking as "barbaric" and blamed the hostage-takers for the lives lost during the storming of the school.

'Unplanned action'

More than 10 of the hostage takers are also reported to have died in exchanges of fire with troops as they tried to escape.

But several hours after the assault, a group of rebels was still firing from a building in the school compound, Itar-Tass said.

AT A GLANCE (TIMES IN GMT)
1407: 10 hostage-takers killed in shoot-outs - Interfax
1345: More than 100 bodies found in school gym - Interfax
1330: Security services say their assault on school was not planned
1322: More than 400 people injured, officials say
1125: Security forces attack house where some rebels thought to be hiding - reports
1115: All hostages reported out of school
0958: Special forces enter school
0930: School roof said to have collapsed
0905: Explosions and gunfire heard. Soldiers run to building


At a glance: School siege 

According to police, the hostage-takers had split into three groups during the storming, with some staying in the school, others fleeing to the south and the remainder trying to blend in with the hostages.


Russian security officials said they had still been intending to negotiate with them.

"I want to point out that no military action was planned," said regional Federal Security Service chief Valery Andreyev. "We were planning further talks."

Security forces had opened fire to save the lives of hostages who were being fired on by gunmen, he said.

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford says a man who had been inside the building told her there had been an explosion and a wall had collapsed. This had been followed by gunfire and many more explosions.

It is unclear what caused the initial explosion.


White sheets

Correspondents say many of those released were desperate for water when they came out, and some were barely able to stand.

  Relatives were running around screaming and crying



Eyewitness: Chaos as battle grips school 
There were scenes of pandemonium, as children ran terrified and half-naked through the streets grabbing water bottles from medics.

One boy described his escape.

"I smashed the window to get out," he told Russian TV. "People were running in all directions... [The rebels] shot from the roof."

Ambulances ferried hundreds of people to hospital. Our correspondent says at least 150 children were among them.


Click below for a detailed map of Beslan


Enlarge Map



Helicopters hovered overhead and there were troops everywhere.

Reuters said six bodies lay covered with white sheets near the school gates, and parents filed past lifting the sheets to see whether their children were underneath.


Officials put the number of hostages at 354 before Thursday's release, although the school has more than 1,000 pupils.


The attackers - both men and women, some wearing bomb belts - struck on Wednesday, the first day of the new school year in Russia.

***

Ivan doesn't fuck around when dealing with terrorists.

 

[nULL]

How would you tell if something like this was a success? More hostages live than die? It's certainly not a video game

I can't help but feel that Canada wouldn't handle something like this well - I mean, what, we just finished getting over what happened at Oka, didn't we? Reports and all?

 

[Jarnhamar]

Did you really expect it to end any other way?

 

[winchable]

Well I expected the hostage takers to come out of the school and put roses in the end of the Russian army Rifles...At which point the Russian Army would calmly take the terrorists into custody and they would be read their rights and garaunteed a decent lawyer and living quarters that meet standard quality of living levels.

Seriously though, if there is one place you'd have to be crazier then your average terrorist to take hostages in, I would think it'd be Russia.

Terrorist: "Here are our demand----."
Russian commander: "Here are ours, put down your rifles and we will leave enough of your bodies to send you home to your parents in an envelope."

 

[jrhume]

I don't think anyone expected this one to end cleanly, but it sounds like things finished up in an unplanned way -- not that a planned way would have been any better.

Once the terrorists had the hostages . . . I can't even imagine a decent ending.

Sad.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Unfortunatley, when dealing with thugs and terrorists, who have no intention of being taken alive and have no sense of compassion or humanity, there can only be one result. The best scenario, that can be hoped for, is a minimalization of collateral damage.

 

[Razic]

Supposedly a bunch of hostages tried to escape and the terrorists starting gunning them down, thats why the russian troops had to rush in without plan, cause kids were getting capped all over the place......... FFFFing Monsters

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

I have read that as well that a bunch of children made a break for it and the terrorists started gunning them down from the roof tops.  There have also been reports of terrorist infighting.  The Russian army definately wasn't ready to go in.
The only other place worse to take hostages IMO would be Isreal.

 

[Lexi]

Humanity's going to hell in a handbasket...
What a shame, they were children and women, have these men any compassion?
I guess not. It's at these sorts of times I'm glad I'm Canadian.

Lex

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

Actually a lot of the terrorists are women and feel this action is the only way to get Russian out of their homeland.

 

[Pieman]

Any predictions on Putin's reaction to this? This atrocity combined with the highjacked planes, IMHO, gives him a golden ticket to do anything he wants to now. Putin is certainly not known for soft handed tactics, so I don't want to even venture a guess right now.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Humanity's going to hell in a handbasket...
... have these men any compassion?
I guess not. It's at these sorts of times I'm glad I'm Canadian.

Lex

Tell that to a person living in Hamburg who was alive in 1943.  The circumstances were different, I realize, but tens of millions of German women and chlidren felt the same way about Canadians once upon a time.

War sucks.

 

[Kirkhill]

With all respect to the Peel Regional team but .......

A platoon/company sized force in a mined building and 1200 kids for hostages, multiple buildings, multiple floors, multiple doors, multiple windows  -  a brigade couldn't have taken that place down cleanly, nor a super secret stealthy commando det.

The only solution was negotiation and neither side had anything to give.


Best of a bad situation -  1000 got out alive.

What do you do next time - damfino - try to get the buggers before they do it again?  Can't build enough big walls.

 

[1feral1]

Between 2100-2300 local Australian time last night I watched this event unfold live on Sky News, bouncing back to the BBC, Fox and CNNI.

We are hearing here that it all started when some hostages escaped, and the terrorists began to start shooting them in the back as they ran for cover. So the Military Forces had to react rather than stand by and watch the slaughter. It goes to show you the true colours of the forces of evil we are up against today.

The volume of small arms fire with the odd explosion was tremendous at times, and there was a fair bit of unorganised pandamonium at times. One injured terrorist was kicked to death by parents and onlookers while he lay in a stretcher.

So, I am not going to comment on the politics of 'they should have done this, or that' in this truly sickening incident   :rage: , and I think all of us should take a moment to think about all those kids who were needlessly slaughtered by a bunch of   > 'fundimentalists'   >   on their first day of school. Imagine the trauma on their parents and families, and the survivors will truly be emotionally and in many cases physically scarred for the rest of their lives.

Again, the real insanity of war is put on to our TV screens.

Regards,

Wes

 

[Spr.Earl]

Be ready for a total assault covert and overt by the Russian Armed Forces!!

 

[Jarnhamar]

One injured terrorist was kicked to death by parents and onlookers while he lay in a stretcher.

Good. Let the punishment suit the crime.


I say good on the russian forces for charging in and saving as many children as they can.

 

[NavyGrunt]

I was watching a thing on CBC last about this incident and noticed that they went out of their way to not use the word terrorist once. "Rebels" and "Hostage Takers" but never terrorist.....I dont know but I found that interesting.....

 

[Sheerin]

Could be North American bias?  I seem to recall CNN and the American news agencies were also avoiding the word terrorist.  Maybe its only terrorism if it happens here?

On CBC radio yesterday evening they were talking to a reporter from the LA times, anyway she related a story of one woman who was held in the building with her two children, and the terrorists allowed her to leave with one of her kids.  When she protested they told her that she and her kids would all die.  So she left with her one son, leaving her younger daughter.
Now, i don't know if this true or not, but it came from a LA times reporter so i'll give it the benefit of the doubt.  I think she said that the daughter survived with only moderate injuries,whcih is good.  But could you imagine having to make that choice? 

In Rush of Joy and Guilt, a Mother Regains Her Child
Zalina Dzandarova finds her daughter safe after the school assault ends but is haunted by her choice to leave the girl and save her son.


By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer


BESLAN, Russia â ” For the first time in 24 hours, Zalina Dzandarova stopped feeling dead inside Friday. She had her daughter back â ” covered with blood, and suffering from shock and dehydration. But alive.

A day earlier, hostage-takers had forced the 27-year-old mother of two to leave the sobbing 6-year-old behind at Middle School No. 1. Only if she abandoned Alana, they told her, could Dzandarova carry her 2-year-old son, Alan, with her to freedom.
   
Haunted by the choice, Dzandarova spent Thursday night imagining what was happening to Alana in the school gymnasium with about 1,000 other terrified children and parents. She blamed herself for her child's ordeal.

You can get the full artice at the LAtimes website (www.latimes.com) althought it requires free registration.

 

[beach_bum]

The decision is very 'Sophie's Choice'.  As a parent I couldn't even imagine being forced to make that sort of choice.  I watched the siege on the news and was reading the ending in the paper this morning.  Horrifying!  It brought tears to my eyes.  I think the Russian soldiers did what they had to do.  I just can't understand the hostage takers and the mind frame they have in order to start killing innocent children.  I think any surviving should meet the same fate as the one that was kicked to death by the parents.

 

[stukirkpatrick]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/09/04/russia.school/index.html

Russia siege toll tops 350
Putin admits weakness, denounces 'attack on our country'
Saturday, September 4, 2004 Posted: 12:42 PM EDT (1642 GMT)


BESLAN, Russia (CNN) -- The death toll in the Russian hostage crisis has climbed beyond 350 as President Vladimir Putin denounced the massacre as "an attack on our country."

In a nationally televised speech Saturday, Putin said the fall of the Soviet Union had left the country unable to react to attacks, and he urged Russians to join together to fight terrorism.

"We must create a much more effective system of security," he said. "We couldn't adequately react. ... We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten." (Full story).

North Ossetia government spokesman Lev Dzugayev told CNN that 323 hostages, including 156 children, died in the siege in the southern town of Beslan.

In addition, 26 hostage-takers -- including 10 people from Arab countries -- and at least 10 Russian special forces were killed. The two-day standoff ended Friday after Russian forces stormed the school amid explosions and intense gunfire.

More than 700 people were wounded, officials said.

Dzugayev said Saturday evening that 448 people were still in hospitals in the region, including 248 children. Among the total hospitalized, 69 were in serious condition.

Dzugayev said most of those who died were killed when a bomb exploded in the school gymnasium where hostages were being held, collapsing the roof and starting a fire.

Of those who died from gunshot wounds, most were shot in the back as they fled the building, he said.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky acknowledged that more than 1,000 people had been held hostage during the ordeal. Earlier, officials had placed the number of hostages at a few hundred.

Putin ordered the borders closed in the North Ossetia region where the siege took place as security forces searched for accomplices in the massacre.

Investigators are looking at the possibility that the hostage-takers may have brought their weapons and explosives into the school well before the siege.

The Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed regional security officer as saying the weapons had been hidden under the floor during summer construction work.

An escaped hostage said she recognized some of the terrorists as having done construction work, Echo Moscow Radio reported.

Putin traveled to the traumatized region near Chechnya early Saturday, visiting wounded in the hospital and meeting local officials.

"Russia is grieving with the people of North Ossetia," he said in Beslan. "Nobody wanted to use force."

"Even alongside the most cruel attacks of the past, this terrorist act occupies a special place because it was aimed at children," news agencies quoted him as saying.

"One of the tasks pursued by the terrorists was to stoke ethnic hatred, to blow up the whole of our North Caucasus.

"Anyone who feels sympathetic towards such provocations will be viewed as accomplices of terrorists and terrorism," he said.

At least 79 bodies have been identified, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition and will require DNA testing for identification, which could take several days.

One witness told a reporter that a hostage-taker had set off a suicide bomb in a gymnasium full of children.

Interfax quoted a defense official as saying that "the terrorists planted a lot of mines and booby-traps filled with metal bolts in the gym."

Valery Andreyev, head of the local branch of the FSB intelligence service, said 10 of the hostage-takers killed were from Arab countries.

Chechens in the past have been affiliated with the al Qaeda terror network, and an Arab connection further suggests a link between the Chechen rebel movement and international terrorists. Chechen rebels have been fighting Russian troops for a decade.

Near the scene, the bodies of dead children were placed on stretchers. One woman leaned down and caressed the body of a young boy. Other women stood shocked, holding their hands to their mouths and weeping.

These and other images of the siege and its aftermath, aired on television and posted on the Internet, horrified people around the world and brought ringing outcries by international leaders. (Full story)

The hostage incident began Wednesday when an armed gang of terrorists took children, parents and teachers hostage on the first day of school in Beslan.

Friday's storming operation was not planned, said a local official from Russia's FSB intelligence service, who told Russian media the troops had been ready for a long siege.

The forces stormed the building around midday after Russian officials, under a cease-fire agreement with militants, tried to collect bodies lying outside the building.

There was an explosion, hostages fled, and hostage-takers opened fire on the children and rescue workers. One of the workers was killed and another was wounded. Russian troops then opened fire at the rebels, and the battle began.

Chaotic scenes
Several hours later the scene remained in chaos, with pockets of resistance remaining and machine-gun fire heard on the scene and troops going room-by-room as the wounded were being taken out of the building.

Children who survived said they were denied food and water and had to take off their clothes because of the heat. Some boys said they had to drink their own urine because they lacked liquids.

The standoff followed a bloody week in Russia. A female suicide bomber killed nine people outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday. Two suspected Chechen female suicide bombers downed two airliners on August 24, killing all 89 people aboard the planes.

Russian officials have said the new wave of attacks is an attempt at revenge for last weekend's elections in Chechnya in which a Kremlin-backed candidate won the presidency.

The Russian Foreign Ministry, in a statement posted on its Web site, thanked other nations for their support, condemned the incident and said a "moment of truth" had come in the fight against international terror.

"We have witnessed a cruel tragedy, a new, unprecedented form of boundless terrorist lawlessness where bandits victimized innocent women, children, and even completely defenseless infants," the statement said.

"The losses are heavy and irretrievable. Bandits were shooting hostages point-blank and were blowing up everyone indiscriminately.

"One needs to draw a lesson from this monstrous crime. It confirms yet again that terrorists are a bunch of beasts for whom nothing is sacred. They challenge the very foundations of civilization to achieve their criminal goals. Terrorism is absolutely incompatible with principles of morality and humanity," the statement said.